how fate does so love the restless

For several long moments Aiden seemed to linger within the doorway of the living room. His fit figure, even within the half-light, seemed nothing short of exhausted. Those brunette locks which seemed so constantly askew appeared all the more haphazard from the younger mans failed efforts to find any sort of sleep. Matteo had known already that sleep would hardly come easily to his younger son tonight and yet- he so hardly needed but any skills of foresight to predict such a thing as that. The loss of the Ark was.....far more than merely a sunken ship. This was the second home Risque had robbed from him. Those possessions were replaceable. Those feelings of.....home were not. Those very emotions too, no matter how valiantly Aiden tried to conceal them, were nothing short of taxing and so had a habit of twisting and turning before they became all consuming and sleep became nothing but a distant and forgotten memory. How well he knew Aiden after all these years and all they had suffered together and yet how very much he wished for any conversation but the one that lingered before them tonight. Aiden, as he had anticipated, continued to longer for several more moments within the doorway. The younger man was almost uncertain on just how to proceed before Matteo gestured to that spot on the sofa beside him. The warmth of that room and too, the comforting dark, were designed to be as such. Those things appealed to his son. Matteo, so subtly, attempting to afford Aiden but even the smallest measure of comfort when that world around him seemed to be crumbling once more.

The softest of sighs left the WereKing then before he made his way forward, Aiden allowing himself, for now, to be coaxed from the darkness and onto the couch beside the fire. Both men, for several more seconds, allowed that quietude to prevail. Little more then the sputtering and crackling of the fire filled the room. EVen Matteo was unable to deny the familiar comfort that sound brought. Such silence however, was hardly destined to last, not when that singular question weighed so heavily upon Aiden's mind. The younger man, finally, uttering it into that once silent space. Aiden so surely knew the truth of the question he asked already and yet, perhaps, he clung to some near feeble thread of hope that once, just once, some disaster within his life had not come at Risques hand. Christ, but how he loathed to be the one to bear the bad news again. A near uncomfortable lump so seemed to settle within Matteo's throat. The Frenchman, as always, was near quick to swallow it. His own emotions, that raw....pain of seeing Aiden hurt again was firmly buried. After all, Aiden needed him. Matteo so staunchly refused to fall apart when he was wholly determined to hold Aiden together. The Frenchman released a breath he had hardly been aware he had been holding, his silver gaze glancing briefly toward his companion before turning to that fire once more.

"Yes and no. It was Darcy who sunk the Ark- but at her command."

The near ancient Fae fell silent once more. Matteo affording Aiden those few moments to contemplate those very words. He had surely already known that truth and yet to hear that very thing confirmed was no less painful in any sense. Why was it that life seemed so very determined to continue to beat Aiden down over and over. No being, Matteo was certain, deserved the heartache his younger son had suffered over and over.

"I'm sorry, Aidun."

He uttered the words softly. How useless they felt. In the wake of all that had happened tonight. Yet- there was truly little to be said that could bring any true comfort to his son tonight. Save that the lives of none of his packmates had been lost. Risque, in the least, would be robbed of satisfaction in that regard. Matteo lifted that glass to his lips once more, the Frenchman taking another small sip before his silver iris focused upon Aiden entirely.

"I knew that she planned to do....something- but she changed her mind so quickly and so frequently I had no time to warn you of it. Since she took Darcy as her mate her thoughts are influenced, in part, by him now. I can see her plans and I can see his, but I am still learning to read those futures when they combine. It is like trying to learn an entirely new language, one written by them both. I wasn't fast enough tonight."