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Edelgard von NN Blog Entry |
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March 17, 2023, 4:00:23 AM 3/17/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "India." Ganges, with an unintentionally creepy person. ... This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Edelgard (no last name ever given). She's a newer character who never appears in the main story but plays a big role in the history of one of the major characters. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: Aside from one brief mention in Godfrey Klemper's updated entry, you'd have to go to my Toyhou.se to see whose name Edelgard's resembles, another character given only a first name and whose last name is never given. He's developed quite a backstory--and a future story--since I last described him, and Edelgard here plays a massive role in it, despite being long gone and presumably dead by the time the main plot takes place. Her character, despite existing only a brief time so far, has already undergone massive changes--including a sex change. (No, not within the story--originally her character was male, then I wondered how different the plot would go if she were female, and it abruptly happened.) It's yet another disturbing tale in a plot full of them, I realize, but yet again, here we go. Let's set the scene, which is still heavily in development so may still change. In the current story, various units of the Wehrmacht which patrol the countryside often stop to rummage through abandoned houses for goods since the supply chain is frequently fractured. One of these units is PFC Klemper's, under the command of 2nd Lt. Frieder Dasch. Klemper is a child soldier who grew up dirt poor, working early on on a farm, and was orphaned young as well; he knows how to scrounge and provide for himself. So he knows, from a quick peek inside, which houses have the good stuff. Dasch often sends him in first to see if the effort is worth it. One day, the unit crests a rise and is surprised to see below them at the edge of a vast clearing near the woods not a house, but a castle--a veritable castle. Sure it's short and boxy and nothing like the castles in picture books, but still, aside from Castle Schavitz it's the first castle they've come across, right in the middle of nowhere, too. They know of no castles supposed to be in this area yet here one is! After a few moments of puzzled speculation, during which they observe it through binoculars and conclude it must be abandoned, they decide to go down and check it out. Maybe there's something good inside. Accompanying the unit is 1st Lt. Ratdog, a sniper whom Klemper has been assigned to watch; when not busy sniping ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ he sometimes travels with them, since he and Klemper, who've grown close, are often separated for weeks on end. He's as surprised to see the castle as they are, but seems strangely dismayed as well; Klemper notices his reluctance to approach it although he goes along. No smoke rises from the chimneys, plus, oddly, the windows and doors have all been left open. Result, the elements have gotten to the place, with the interior being quite worn, damp, and unsuitable for longterm habitation. Ratdog sits on a mouldering couch in the main hall while Klemper ventures up the great staircase and the others mill around curiously. Dasch notices a large portrait of a couple in Prussian noble dress over the fireplace, but the faces have been damaged. There's an engraving in the wood above the mantel and he brushes off the dust; he reads aloud, "'Herr Herzog und Frau Herzogin von...'" but the surname is gouged out and unreadable. All he can tell is the castle once belonged to a Herzog and Herzogin--a duke and a duchess. Whoever they were, their name is now lost to history. Upstairs, Klemper rummages through the living quarters; he finds nothing much worth salvaging aside from a child's toy--a carved wooden horse, which he tucks into his coat--but is quite curious about a pile of portraits he finds at the end of a hallway. Just dumped there after being pulled from the walls. He looks through them in the hopes of learning about who once lived here. Some of them are what appear to be family portraits--a mother, a father, two children--but, creepily, the faces of the parents are all destroyed. The children are a younger boy and an older girl with long straight hair, both of them unsmiling. Klemper tries to push down his unease though it's difficult the more he looks. As he browses, the children in the portraits get older, until finally he digs out one where the girl looks almost grown, the boy perhaps in his mid teens. And Klemper drops the portrait, eyes wide, and pushes himself to his feet. He runs back up the hall and down the great staircase to the ground level where everyone else is milling around. Klemper stumbles into the main hall so abruptly that everyone looks at him. Dasch asks if he found anything useful; he says no, he didn't. Dasch decides that they'll sleep the night there, since at least it provides adequate shelter on a dry mild night, and they'll head out again in the morning. Everyone gets out their bedrolls and they start a fire in the fireplace, settling down to eat and talk a bit before turning in. The next day, as planned, they head out again, leaving the castle behind. Ratdog notices Klemper giving him a furtive look now and then, but neither says anything. It isn't until later on, when they're alone, that Klemper pulls out the little toy horse and shows it to Ratdog. Ratdog blinks and actually flinches back a bit. Klemper hesitates before venturing, "It used to be yours...?" An aside, now. When they were still getting to know each other, and on rather poor terms yet improving, Klemper had asked Ratdog his real name. Ratdog had replied, "It doesn't matter. I'm the last, it dies with me." Implying it must be some kind of old, rare name. Klemper said, "What's your first name, then?" to which Ratdog paused but then said, "Adel." Klemper henceforth refers to him by his real name, Adel, and is the only one to do so until after the war (when most of the characters drop his wartime pseudonym and refer to him as Herr Adel). Now...when I chose a real name for Ratdog, I don't believe I put much thought into it aside from it being German, and sounding good. I likely looked up the meaning and thought that was cool too, but it wasn't why I chose this particular name. This is my way of saying I had NO idea about this future plot point when I named him...but it worked out in an odd way. "Adel" isn't just a name. In combination, Deutscher Adel, it refers to the old German noble class: The barons, the counts, the dukes. (Adelina Dobermann's name is from the same root word.) "Herzog," duke, is almost as high a noble rank as somebody can get without being a literal prince. The name and faces of the duke and duchess of the old castle were wiped out, but the portraits of their children, the young Herzog and Herzogin, survived. Klemper has no idea who the girl is, but despite being only a teenager in the image, Ratdog was easily recognized. Ratdog isn't just a Junker, he's the last of a long, ancient line of dukes, and that was his castle. In one part of the story, a Nazi official offers to put together Klemper's family tree; he manages to do so from the names of Klemper's late parents and gleefully proclaims that Klemper is of pure Aryan blood and comes from "a long, proud line of peasant farmers." Klemper isn't impressed either way. Ratdog turns down the same offer. Klemper now wonders if this is why; he doesn't want anyone to know he's a duke? Ratdog asks if this changes anything between them--he's the exact opposite of Klemper, and maybe a hundred or so years ago, somebody just like Klemper would've worked his fingers to the bone on Ratdog's estate. Klemper says it doesn't matter. He's curious why Ratdog would want to hide such information, though, and why he apparently abandoned that life. Because as long as Klemper's known him, he's lived alone in the woods in a tiny stone cottage he built himself. Why would he give up a castle? What happened to all the portraits and the family name? And most of all, what became of Ratdog's older sister? For that's obviously who the unknown girl in the portraits must have been. Ratdog is just as obviously quite reluctant to share his story with Klemper, but the two of them are learning to be honest with each other, and this is a pretty big thing to not be honest about. In bits and pieces he tells Klemper his story. His family of dukes and duchesses had lived in the castle for generations, hundreds of years. The farmland around the estate, and the number of people working for them, dwindled more and more over the years so that by the time of his grandparents, it was pretty much just them and their son and daughter. One winter day the older duke and duchess went off hunting in the woods near the castle and didn't return by evening. A snowstorm passed through, so it wasn't until the next day that the younger duke could finally go out searching for them. He returned home emptyhanded. The only thing he and the younger duchess could assume was that they'd been caught in and succumbed to the storm. Later in the following year, he would indeed find two scattered sets of bones inside a cave in the woods where they must have tried to seek shelter, but most likely froze to death in the cold. Now it was just the younger duke and duchess living in the castle. Although there was a distant neighbor here and there which they could trade with when necessary, aside from that they were on their own; the duke knew how to hunt, so he could provide for them, though it was quite a lonely, isolated existence. They eventually had a daughter--a new young duchess--but from an early age it was obvious something was wrong with her. She was prone to extreme violent fits which her mother couldn't handle, ending up locking her in her room for extended periods. Her father tried to get through to her when he could, but didn't do much better. He disagreed with the duchess's decision to lock their daughter away, but without anyone else to help calm her down, there was little they could do. After several years they had another child, a son. He didn't share his older sister's violent temperament, seeming every bit a normal, healthy child, and his mother doted on him. One day when wandering the castle unattended, he discovered a locked door and managed to get inside. By the time the older duchess realized he was missing, and tracked him down to the room where his sister had been confined, the girl already had a scissor blade pointed at the boy's neck. The duchess's screams brought her husband running and they both stood and stared at their daughter, holding their young son with the weapon at his throat. No amount of begging and cajoling would convince her to let him go, until the boy looked up at her. Unlike his parents, he was too young to understand the seriousness of the situation, and so wasn't afraid. Seeing him looking up at her, the girl let him go. The duchess grabbed her son and pulled him away and the tense standoff ended. The duke asked for the scissor blade and held out his hand, the girl lashing out and gouging it open; when he held out his other hand, however, instead of getting angry with her, she finally relinquished the weapon. He refused to lock their daughter away again--the way she'd reacted to her brother proved, in his mind, that she wasn't entirely broken. Surely they could help her. The duchess didn't want anything to do with her for threatening their son, so he took it on himself, finding her some decent clothes, washing her up, brushing and fixing her tangled hair; before long, she looked like any noble child any family would be proud of. He tried to spoil her and pay her all the attention he could, but it didn't seem to get through to her much; a few times she would hold her arms out to her mother and make noises indicating she wanted to be picked up, but the duchess refused. A chill fell between them and they never grew close, though she did grow close to her younger brother, who would often keep her company and play with and read to her. He didn't seem terrified of her like their parents were. Klemper stops the story and asks the question that has to be obvious by now: The only people who had been living in the castle were the old duke and duchess, and their son and daughter. The older couple had disappeared into the storm. Now, there's a new duke and duchess, and their son and daughter. "This girl and this boy, this is your sister?--and you?" When Ratdog confirms it--these two children are himself, Adel, and his sister, Edelgard--Klemper then furrows his brow and says, "Then, your mother and your father...they were...?" Ratdog confirms this, as well: His mother and his father were brother and sister, the children of his grandparents. It's never stated outright, but the implication is that his grandparents were also siblings, and who knows how far back this particular arrangement goes. Klemper then has to gingerly ask: "You and your sister...?" Ratdog shakes his head--no, the two of them were never a couple; although they were likely expected to be, they weren't interested in each other that way. It's obvious now why he didn't want his family tree made out; he again asks Klemper if this changes anything between them. Klemper replies, "It's...odd...but odd things happen out in the country." He would know. Ratdog theorizes that this long family tradition may have contributed to his sister's fractured mental state, though he isn't sure why the same didn't happen to him. Does Klemper want to know the rest of the story? He nods, so Ratdog continues. Despite their father's, and his, best efforts, his sister was never quite right, and the resentment between her and her mother only seemed to grow over time. Whenever Adel and his father left the castle to go hunting, his father teaching him everything he'd need to know when it was time for him to take over, this left Edelgard at home alone with their mother. The two simply tried to avoid each other as much as possible. Privately, Edelgard would confide in Adel her feelings about their mother, and they were dark ones; he tried to reassure her, but wasn't sure how. The older the two of them grew, the more strained the situation became. One day Adel went out hunting alone--he was old enough now--while his father remained behind to tend to their mother, who wasn't feeling well. Edelgard of course remained home as well. It was late by the time he returned, puzzled by how silent the place was; sure it had never been noisy what with only the four of them there, but there should have been voices at least, or dinner on the table. He grew uneasier the longer he looked around, but there was nobody on the ground floor; so he went upstairs where the living quarters were. When he reached his parents' room, he finally found his mother, still in bed, but now drenched in blood; his father was slumped on the floor beside the bed with blood pooled around him as well. He panicked at first, trying to wake them, then realizing they were both gone--then breaking down sobbing--then gasping and cringing back when something moved in the corner of the room. Edelgard was there, her own clothes soaked red, though she wasn't hurt. She still held a long, dripping hairpin in her hand. When he asked her what she'd done, she hadn't much answer, aside from the ever-present enmity between her mother and herself. What about their father, though?--he'd never rejected her, he'd only ever been kind. Why would she kill him, too? Edelgard's eyes grew dark when she described how he'd reacted upon coming into the room in response to his wife's screams. "He called me 'monster,'" Edelgard said quietly, and that was bad enough. For a few moments it looked as if she would turn the hairpin on him as well, but when he didn't turn on her the way their father had, she faltered. Instead, she advised him to take what he needed, and leave the castle--"Before I hurt you, too. It's only a matter of time, anyway." Despite the horror of the situation he was reluctant to leave her, but had to do so when she started screaming at him in a rage; he hurriedly rifled through the family's belongings, fetched a few things, and fled. Over the next day or so he visited a distant neighbor who was willing to help him settle some monetary issues and trade him a few things he needed; he intended to return to the castle, but a heavy snow fell, delaying him from doing so. When he did return, he found the castle almost exactly the way Dasch's unit found it, with the doors and windows cast open, snow drifting inside and piled into corners and dusted upon furniture. His parents' bodies were gone, as well as Edelgard. After searching the castle from top to bottom he ventured into the woods, calling for her, but there were no prints to follow, nobody to be found. He lingered nearby for a bit, but nobody ever returned to the castle, and so he finally left it, and his name, behind for good. "You never found her?" Klemper asks. "Alive or dead?" No, Ratdog isn't even sure if Edelgard is dead, though he assumes that, like the grandparents they never met, she simply wandered off into the snow. He himself wandered around a bit before picking a secluded spot to build his own home, where he's lived ever since, when he's not staying in the city. Klemper, who had previously mocked the tiny stone house more than once, refrains from doing so again--now that he knows why Ratdog built it and what he left behind--and instead asks, "Why do you think she ran away? You never hurt her, she never hurt you." Ratdog shrugs and says, "I think maybe she felt she was just too broken and didn't deserve to stay with me. Or that maybe it was just inevitable I'd end up hurting her, too." Klemper says nothing this time. He's had a very rough life, has been chewed up and spat out more times than he can count, and although he's only around eighteen when he and Ratdog first meet, he's lived through way more awful experiences than anyone should, and it's left him bitter and dysfunctional. Although he wants more than anything to matter to someone else, all he ever seems to end up as is a victim, and by now he just assumes he's too broken to be fixed, he doesn't deserve love, and everyone, Ratdog included, will just hurt him anyway. Ratdog's proven he means it when he promises Klemper he'll be there for him, repeatedly, but Klemper's just been through SO much he can never entirely believe him. Ratdog's description of his sister suddenly hits home hard and he realizes why her story resonated with him. Although their circumstances were quite different, some of the fundamentals are the same. Ratdog's patience dealing with him and his mental instability is because he's already dealt with such a thing, in his own family. Ratdog can tell from the way Klemper falls silent and looks away that this has just struck him, yet he too says nothing. I believe at some point later in the story Ratdog's true status somehow comes out--it's almost guaranteed for example that the SS, which keeps detailed records on everyone, has a lengthy file on him, especially since he's investigated and even briefly detained when authorities learn he didn't earn his rank in the Wehrmacht and is more of an "honorary" member than anything--and of course Dasch and his unit are surprised by this revelation. Far from it becoming a source of ridicule as he'd expected, Dasch's men seem to respect him somewhat more--he isn't quite the dilettante playing soldier whom they'd assumed he is, although not from a fighting family he's still from old German blood--much like Klemper, despite their vast difference in status--and after learning the ropes he knows how to look after himself. Dasch does take a poke at him here and there referring to him as "Herr Herzog" but it isn't intended maliciously, he grows to grudgingly respect Ratdog since Klemper does. This revelation about Ratdog's personal background might end up benefiting him or the unit at some point though I have yet to determine how. The rest of Ratdog's plot has developed somewhat since I last wrote about him. It's complex and extended, I've likely gone over parts of it already, so I'll avoid going into minute detail and will summarize best I can. He and Klemper make plans to retire to his little stone house and live there together, away from everyone else but happy; not long after the war has ended, however, while there are still random skirmishes here and there, another German sniper takes a shot at Ratdog but Klemper, hearing it first, shoves him to the ground and is wounded instead. Ratdog brings him home and removes the bullet; they fall asleep in each other's arms after going over their future plans again, with Klemper reiterating that all he'd ever wanted was to know that he mattered to someone else: "I have everything I want." He dies in his sleep, bleeding out from the second bullet that both of them missed; overwhelmed by grief, Ratdog buries him next to the grave of his son Hans, who was killed when only a toddler. He himself is then shot while traveling in the open; his assailant this time is Didrika, a former resistance leader he and Klemper had alternated between fighting against and assisting throughout the war. The three of them had technically been enemies, but more often acted like rivals, with Didrika and Klemper tossing mocking nicknames at each other while Didrika and Ratdog admired each other's shooting skills. Earlier, Ratdog had come across Didrika's lover, Boris, mortally wounded in a ditch; he gave Boris his gun, with one bullet, so he didn't have to bleed out slowly and painfully. Didrika found his body and Ratdog's pistol, and has tracked him down to finish the job. After some back and forth, Ratdog finally snaps at her to kill him: "Go ahead, then! I have nothing left." Instead, Didrika breaks down weeping; she's mourning just the same as he is. Ratdog passes out from blood loss, comes to back in his own cottage, his wound bandaged up; Didrika saved him, unable to bear losing yet another person she knows. Technically they were enemies, but now they're all each other has left. In the absence of the ones they intended to spend their lives with, they become each other's lifeline in the years following the war. Ratdog and Didrika aren't in love with each other--those feelings they keep for Klemper, and Boris--and they never marry. They do live together as partners, though, filling the void for each other, and have a son and a daughter, Godfrey and Tatiana (named after Klemper, and Boris's deceased sister). Ratdog's family line doesn't die out with him after all. Shortly after both children reach adulthood, Didrika falls ill, and after a time succumbs. Ratdog is finally left alone, and after so many losses--his parents, his sister, his son, his lover, and now his partner--he's barely holding on; the hurt is overwhelming. However, Tatiana tentatively informs him, on a visit, that she's pregnant; she was worried he would be disappointed in her, as she's not married herself, but Godfrey had insisted she tell their father, believing he'd understand, and that the news might help him. Indeed, Ratdog isn't disappointed in her (he'd been a single father himself), and Godfrey promises to help his sister with the baby when it arrives, so everything is well. After the birth Ratdog goes to visit at her bedside and meets his new grandson; he asks what she'll name him. Tatiana peers up at him and murmurs, "I wondered...would it be all right, would you mind, if I named him Hans...?" Ratdog gives his blessing for his grandson to be named after his deceased son, Tatiana's and Godfrey's half-brother whom they never met. He thinks he hid his feelings well enough, breaking down only after reaching home; Tatiana's decision hits him hard, and he can't handle it. A knock at the door, however, makes him straighten himself out long enough to answer; he's surprised to see Godfrey. Godfrey is sensitive to others' emotions, in some ways much like his namesake, and he knows his father isn't doing well. They talk briefly, Ratdog assuring him he's all right, and Godfrey prepares to leave; at the door, though, he suddenly hugs his father, hard. "I want you to know," he whispers in Ratdog's ear, "I'll always love you. No matter what happens." His words make it clear: He knows what's been on Ratdog's mind since Didrika's death, during their whole relationship in fact. It was why he urged Tatiana to tell him about her pregnancy while she had the chance. He knows Ratdog's held on as long as he was able, and this is likely the last time they'll talk. And he tells his father, in his own way, that he understands. It's all right to let go now. Ratdog tells him he loves him and Tatiana and Hans in return. Godfrey promises to let them know, and leaves. Ratdog waits until he's sure he's gone before breaking down sobbing. His heart feels like it's been sucked out of his chest. It's felt that way since Klemper's death. He gets up and digs around in his cupboards, pulls out a large bottle. He gave up drinking years ago, as it reminded Klemper too much of his drunken father. He starts drinking anyway even though it just makes him cry harder at first--"I'm sorry, Godfrey," he sobs repeatedly, hating to break his promise to Klemper. His crying slowly lessens a little the longer he drinks, though, and he pulls himself together enough to write a short note--"I'm sorry, I tried"--which he leaves on the table, setting a glass atop it. He gets up, opens the window and leans out into the snowy air, taking a breath--it makes him shiver, but a few more drinks warm him up again, and he finally starts to feel drowsy and numb. He opens the other windows, the door, lets the gusting icy air fill the tiny house, snow flitting in, piling into corners, dusting upon furniture. He takes the toy horse Klemper stole from the castle so long ago and holds it close. Then he lies down in his bed, shuts his eyes, and drifts away. [Edelgard von NN 2023 [Friday, March 17, 2023, 4:00:23 AM]] |