#ive been feeling a certain kinda way lately and somehow it’s the fucking father/son curry that broke me

[accursedarchives]

Okay but the new Dragalia Life comic implies that Leonidas learned to make curry from his dad, or maybe because of his dad, and that’s really humanizing for him. That his iconic (and likely favorite, if going by the Stranded Scions event where he was pissed that he missed Chelle’s curry) dish is a connection between him and Aurelius is... surprisingly sentimental for him. Sure, we saw a softer side to Leonidas in the aforementioned Stranded Scions event, and even hints of it in the main story after his...redemption? After becoming less of an asshole. In how he explicitly and non-derisively refers to Euden as family now at least :) But back to the curry.

I don’t know what’s a more striking image. A little Leonidas in the kitchen with Aurelius as father teaches son his new recipes, before work and crises piled up. A simpler time that Leonidas can remember each time he cooks the dish; he remembers his fathers voice telling him how to chop vegetables properly, and insisting that spice measurements are something you feel in your soul rather than something rigid. He’ll never forget the smile on Aurelius’s face when Leonidas made his curry “just right” for the first time.

Or maybe it’s a little Leonidas, chasing the curry recipe his father made when he was still young, when they still had time to bond together, when things were a little bit easier. Aurelius changed, after... something happened when his youngest brother was born, and he left to the North to find a solution. It’s hard to notice, because Aurelius tries so hard to continue being the same goofy, loving father Leonidas grew up with. And it’s true that Aurelius’s change isn’t very noticeable— when the man is around, which is becoming less and less. He’s busy, as a king should be. And Leonidas, as the eldest son and heir to the throne, is very much not upset that his father is spending less time with him. He must be a model prince, and a model prince does not whine after his father’s affections.

Still, he sets to recreating that childhood curry recipe with the same fervor he puts into battle tactics. It’s something he does only in his spare time— something he has increasingly less of. It doesn’t help that in each batch, there’s something missing. His men eat it eagerly anyway, praise Leonidas’s skill; it’s only natural that the first scion is good at this, too. But, to someone who remembers something else, something better, something warmer in a way that has nothing to do with the food’s temperature and the spices used... it’s hollow.

Leonidas only ever gets to share his curry with his father once, towards the end of things. Aurelius feigns hurt that his son never offered him a bowl of his “famous” curry; he was something of a curry master in his day, after all! Leonidas doesn’t say that it’s because he feels as if his curry never matched up to his father’s. Still, he serves him a bowl, because what else could he do?

Aurelius’s wide smile and genuine praise for his son’s curry stick in his mind, after that. Leonidas does not react with much visible emotion, thanking Aurelius for his words. Internally, though? He’s warm in a way he hasn’t felt since he was a child.

Even though Aurelius asks to try Leonidas’s curry again, the opportunity never arises. Euden goes off to make his pact with the Windwyrm, and things spiral out of control quickly from there. Before Leonidas knows it, his father is possessed and then dead in short order.

But, as he looks after the Halidom in the seventh scion’s absence during the debacle in the North... Zodiark often comes by when he smells Leonidas making curry. The two don’t speak, but Leonidas always leaves him a bowl.