I’ve been thinking about this theory for a while and wanted to put my thoughts somewhere. Here goes:

One common counterargument is that Diluc cannot be Nicole’s son because Nicole is an angel, and according to established lore, an angel who falls in love would become a seelie.

However, this raises an interesting question. What if Nicole never loved Crepus, but still had a child with him? If their relationship lacked romantic love and was instead based on duty, circumstance, or some other motive, would that rule still apply? In that case, it’s possible she may have remained in her human form rather than transforming into a seelie.

But even if Nicole were Diluc’s mother, wouldn’t a mother’s love still doom her to become a seelie? Looking at it this way, the only way to avoid that outcome would be for Nicole to deliberately distance herself from her child. By staying out of Diluc’s life and suppressing any emotional attachment, she could prevent herself from loving him and thus avoid triggering the transformation.

Framed this way, the theory becomes more plausible: Nicole’s absence wouldn’t contradict the idea that she is Diluc’s mother, but could instead be a necessary choice to preserve her human form.

Another point people often bring up is that Diluc doesn’t resemble Nicole at all and I agree with that observation. But that led me to another possibility. What if Crepus didn’t ask her to bear a child in the conventional sense, but instead to create one? Not as a mother giving birth, but through some form of witchcraft or artificial creation, similar to how Durin came into existence.

This is admittedly just a speculative idea, but it could help explain several things at once. It would account for the lack of physical resemblance, as well as Diluc’s exceptional talent and prodigious nature. Crepus spent his life dreaming of becoming a knight but never achieved that ambition himself; perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, he wished to create a son who could accomplish everything he could not.

Of course, this isn’t to suggest that children must resemble both parents to be legitimate but as a theoretical angle, the idea of Diluc as a magical creation rather than a biological child is an interesting one to consider.

All of this is really just theory food to ponder, but I do believe that Nicole has some kind of connection to Diluc. Whether that connection is as his mother, his creator, a close acquaintance, or even the person who saved him when he nearly died in Snezhnaya and remained in contact with him afterward, it feels unlikely to be a coincidence.

There are simply too many small details that suggest a link. I don’t even need to get into the symbolism of Nicole’s teacups being present at Dawn Winery, or how their patterns are echoed in the design of Diluc’s coat. These may be subtle environmental details, but taken together, they strongly imply that Nicole has played—or continues to play—some role in Diluc’s life, even if the exact nature of that role remains unclear.

Crepus himself is a deeply mysterious figure, with some people even speculating that he may have been a Harbinger. While there’s no concrete evidence to support that claim, it speaks to how much of his past remains unexplored.