WHAT. 

Nobody behaves this way! 

It's kind of great Sorry, Daeran does not have any positive emotions available right now. 

...He can sort of appreciate that this nonsense is the kind of thing he would usually approve of. He's not at all sure he cares, but he is, like, aware of it. 

He is definitely all out of But Why Aren't You Doing Normal Things Instead Of Not-Normal Things, though. So he sort of...stares at her, bewildered. 

"What?" he manages to say, out loud, after a minute. 

"You need a hug." 

His needs go so far beyond a hug it isn't even funny. 

"Go away," he says after a minute. If he doesn't like her, then he doesn't want to interact with her, and if he does like her, then he wants her far, far away from him so that thehorriblething won't get her. 

"Nuh-uh." 

"Why?"

"'Cause you need a hug." 

"You think a hug can fix me?" 

Oh no that's more emotional honesty than he intended. He definitely needs to end this interaction. 

"No?" 

...

Daeran is in no way equipped to handle this interaction. 

Well, when in doubt, he can always default to being horrible to people until they go away. 

"Fuck off." 

"What does fuck mean?" 

...Well. 

If he teaches her lots of swear words, even if it doesn't drive her away, it will at least mean that whoever brought her here won't do it again, whether it's oh-so-holy Terendelev or not. 

Lucette listens to this vocabulary lesson attentively. 

"None of those words seem to mean anything very interesting," she concludes.

"Grownups think fucking is pretty interesting. Your parents probably fuck all the time." 

(He has not given up on trying to drive her away by being a horrible little shit.) 

"I think they're probably too busy fighting demons." 

"I dunno, we haven't beat the demons yet, have we? I bet if your--" he still doesn't know what parent-related word to use to refer to Terendelev "--parents," it's not like the other one isn't supposed to also be a pretty powerful caster, it's probably fine, "really tried, instead of screwing all the time, the crusade would be over by now." 

That...sounds wrong...but Lucette is not actually sure how to articulate her objection. 

She's not gonna unhug though. 

Daeran more or less resigns himself to grumpily experiencing hugs until she goes away. 

If being hugged actually does feel really good once he stops overthinking it, well--if he doesn't say so out loud then it doesn't count. 

Eventually Lucette's Mama does come to collect her ebullient spawn. 

She can't help but smile when she comes into the room and observes her daughter snuggling the young and cranky Count. 

"Lucette, love, time to go." 

Awww. On the other hand: Mama! 

Lucette reluctantly unhugs from Daeran and then launches herself flappily at her mother. 

Oof. Lucette is objectively too big for Lavinia to be doing this, but--she didn't get to hold her enough when she was smaller. So. Objectivity be damned. 

Daeran's response to all of this is to close his eyes and roll over. He does not perceive it. He cannot perceive it. He does not, remotely, have the cope to perceive it. He just does not have the energy to deal with the screaming abyss in his heart where his own mother is supposed to be, right now. 

This whole thing was exhausting, but now it's over, and it definitely isn't going to happen again. 

Well, this is sort of correct, in the sense that she doesn't show up again until a week later, when he has, reluctantly, actually left his bed. 

Yeah he sort of regrets that decision when he sees her. 

"What are you doing here again?" 

Did she just not tell her parents about what a horrible little shit he was? ...Because that's actually a really reasonable course of action, if you learn a lot of naughty words, is to not tell your parents about it, drat. 

"Everyone I asked said they went away when you told them to. So I thought you were probably lonely." 

"I'm not lonely!" he immediately lies.