(context) lmaooo so this concept has not left my mind ever since it started properly solidifying when I was talking to @serbarris the other day...! And I am so sorry because this really did end up becoming incoherent rambling. I am more than happy to clarify any part of it for you if you so desire! Anyway, for anything in the AU timeline to make sense, it's important to know that in my canon-verse series, Enduring Friendships, way way down the line, the planned implication is that Manfred is thematically a Volkoss baby. REASONING: 1) My Rook, bless them, does not have parental instincts. They are the fun auncle. They are the lowkey chaos agent who ended up saving the world through the power of vibes and charisma and Solas living rent-free in their head.

2) In EF canon, Emmrich created Manfred from the 'wisp of curiosity' at a time when he was alone and grieving and very much missing Johanna (world's most curious individual). So, the implication is even in Johanna's absence, she shaped Manfred.

3) As Johanna continues to live with Emmrich and Rook, she continues to rub off on him over the years.

4) No-one really wants to admit that all three of them are all collectively co-parenting this spirit-turned-real-boy so it becomes an accidental game of repression and miscommunication and 🌟academic investigation🌟.

But that's a story for the main canonverse and isn't related to the AU. (Yet. I don't think.)

NOW, the AU... 1) I was talking to @serbarris about the joys of 'hyperspecific job AUs' (shameless plug for her amazing story Heaven Help the Fool, an Emmrook fic where everyone's civil servants). 2) Given my own background, I wanted to write a railway AU and realised that The Grand Necropolis would actually be a great backdrop for such an endeavour, given how important railways have been to cemetries historically (gotta move those bodies and/or mourners somehow!) 3) Next thing I know I'm writing railway lore. And also still making jokes about Manfred being a Volkoss baby. And then it hit me: Emmrich and Johanna as feuding coworkers and having a literal baby. Probably taking place during their estrangement where they're barely talking together except for meetings where they're important stakeholders for some reason and then they keep! fucking!! on company property somehow. Cue Emmrich guilt spiral. Johanna is too busy to spiral, she's working two jobs and doing busy important academic research with ... Solas, who's the only person who's willing to listen to her batshit theories. "Hey, Solas, I think souls can be transferred. Hey, Solas, I think spirits can become flesh. Hey, Solas, do you think if we condense enough souls in a small enough vessel, we could make a bomb...?" Rook, meanwhile, lightly screaming in the background because none of their coworkers are normal. Johanna, of course, does NOT intend to become pregnant with Volkarin's baby (gross? also babies are a waste of time?) However. She is just so busy, so used to dating women, that she kind of. Forgets about actually using protection (it's a metaphor for how reckless she is with her own body in pursuit of her research). (Emmrich, bless him, just...assumed she had everything in control and didn't even ask.) And then a few months pass. And she hasn't gotten her period. And she's just like WHATEVER, you know what, she's been stressed lately,Yeah it's probably fine. (It's not fine). Meanwhile, by this point Emmrich has started putting the dots together and starts treating her like a newborn kitten (and also buying little booties while being too terrified to ask her about the pregnancy, or if she's keeping it, or what.) Johanna HATES this, but is still sleeping with him because no-one's staged an intervention yet. Rook probably will though, because they're still screaming in the background as they transferred here to witness a functional railway system and this is NOT IT.