#barok van zieks' life is one mentor/paternal figure after another betraying him. he thought genshin killed klint? true but psych!

[soulscursed]

(incomplete drabble that started from wanting to dive into some klint and barok headcanons, and ended up with incoherent rambling)

things that klint van zieks was...

... barok's major role model from an early age. though long and intricate (and hailing from beyond the Great British empire, perhaps even from the then-hostile united provinces of the Netherlands), all but the previous generation of van zieks ancestry has much bearing on its two modern sons. the late master of the van zieks estate withered away quickly after his wife died during her second childbirth; grief swallowed him whole and, along with him, all devotion to his first son and any that he might have given to his second.

barok was much too young to feel the absence of their late father. old enough to walk and to string together little sentences... 'klint! want klint! klint!' was a reported favourite, cried and shouted all through the hours of the day, much to the dismay of the maids). he was well-taught enough to mind instructions given by his older brother to behave, and just old enough to begin to retain his newest memories, but also to play make believe. he was proud to demonstrate a combination of all these skills in the corner of klint's study which he often haunted for hours on end: poorly obscured behind a pillar, his tailored cloak pulled over his lower face, brows knit into a baleful glare.

( 'what is that?' klint had teased once, tousling the hair that barok had taken such care in oiling back. the death of their father was still fresh then, the wound in his heart nowhere near ready to begin to mend. 'what are you supposed to be?'

( 'lord van zieks!' barok had snapped. no amount of covering his face would hide his reddening ears, at least not with his complexion. 'it's father!'

( and klint's heart had sunk. so far gone was their departed father that barok would never remember him as anything other than a ghost — a stranger in their own home. )

aka the tale of klint van zieks' parentification... i think the amount that barok talks about his brother? it was a horrible murder, but van zieks talks like he's never stopped mourning. of course one never does, but this feels like a 24/7 self-torment thing

i think their lives were so intertwined because of their dynamic. klint wanting to give barok the world, knowing what he himself had lost and overcompensating generously with his darling brother. but uhhhh at some point klint toes the line of "all i do is all for my brother" and begins to tiptoe into justification for other things. like murder.

i think their rship is particularly codependent in nature. vampiric, almost. even if mutually so. and i think klint does not shoulder the blame for all that — he had his many burdens throughout life. being nobility, they not only restrained 99% of their affections, but also their family affairs, to the privacy of their home. there was no counter to balance out the developing co-dependency.

i believe this co-dependency follows barok post-Professor trial. he talks about how he felt that the existence of the Reaper sometimes brings him a bizarre reassurance — as if it's klint doing justice where he could not. this goes against van zieks' morals; he operates within the constraint of the law, flawed as it is, and does what he can to pursue truth within it. because pursuing justice does not involve going and killing people you deem guilty. he's actively investigating the Reaper himself to put a stop to it, even as he bears the title for the sake of London's safety, but the fact that he sometimes takes comfort in it... crazy. talk of a man who idolised his brother far too blindly to think "maybe my brother is the Professor" more than just Once, despite the fact they keep hunting dogs... and klint was gone often during that time... and he was acting bizarrely...

barok may have formed this relationship one-sidedly with stronghart, who filled the role (however vaguely) of a guardian after the Professor trial. explains as well why barok would have been blind to his ... general demeanour.