The blurry sight of Lisa's face fills Julius's view. A vision that wasn't entirely unexpected anymore, especially given how they fell asleep just a few hours prior. He cant help but smile warmly as he takes in her sleeping face. Her body rising and falling with her breath. A sight that Julius finds relaxing.
Julius's body was woken up by his urge to use the bathroom, but conflicted with not wanting to leave Lisa's embrace. He drinks in another good look at Lisa, before slowly and gently prying himself out of her arms, and getting out of the bed, walking towards the door.
He slowly creaks it open, steps out and closes it behind him, making sure to do so silently, before walking down the hall.
[Julius]: "If anyone's awake right now i really hope it's Lawrence this time."
He finds the bathroom door, a room defined by the singular plant vase next to it, the only feature that stands out from the rest.
Opening the door, his expression changes, and his opinion on the room switches to a complete 180. Just beyond the door is a luxurious bathroom with cut marble for its floor and counter.
After the greatest bathroom experience of Julius's life, he washes his hands, and leaves to return to Lisa's room.
Right before his hand touches the doorknob, he hears a loud thud, coming from downstairs, around where the staff rooms were. His attention is drawn to the sound for a moment, staring down the corridor, before coming to the conclusion that Lawrence was probably awake, and had dropped one of his gardening tools or something similar to that.
He opens the door slowly and walks a single step inside, just to be met with Lisa on the other side, yawning and rubbing her eye.
[Julius]: "Lisa? Your awake."
[Lisa]: "Mmmmh. I opened my eyes and you were gone, so i got up to look for you."
Her speech is soft and slow, showing just how tired she really is, trying her best to keep her eyes open to look at Julius.
[Julius]: "Just went to the bathroom, that's all, sorry to worry you Lisa."
He gently places his hand on her head, petting her. Her messy hair and the warmth it radiates is a soothing feeling to him.
[Lisa]: "Mmmmh."
She closes her eyes and leans into his touch, a wide smile forming on her face. But their moment is interrupted by another loud thud, which makes Lisa jump, hey eyes shooting open for a moment.
[Julius]: "Hmm, that was the second one now. It sounds too loud for the size and weight of Lawrence's tools if we can hear it all the way over here."
[Lisa]: "The second? Should we go see if everything's okay?"
He lowers his arm and turns slightly.
[Julius]: "Sure. No harm in not, right?"
Lisa smiles up at him with renewed energy, her fists closed and by her side as she lets out an enthusiastic "Hmh!".
Walking swiftly through the halls of the manor, they make it to the top of the stairs, which lead right down to the main room, where they see someone.
Both Lisa and Julius freeze at the top of the stairs, unsure what to make of the sight. Miura stands below them, holding Lucille over his shoulder, in strange restraints. The sight of Lisa and Julius cause Miura to let out a frustrated "Tch!".
[Lisa]: "Miura? What are you doing with Lady Lucille?"
Lucille squirms around enough so that her face is visible. The pair see Lucille in a strange collar that glows a deep blue, along with something in her mouth to silence her. Her wrists are bound with a large block of stone that connect them together. She looks up at the two in desperation, trying to scream, but only coming out as muffled hums.
Julius's eyes widen in horror as the situation sets in. Lisa takes no time to run down the stairs, her fists clenched in anger and confusion.
[Lisa]: "Take those restraints off of her! What are you doing Miura!?"
[Miura]: "Stay back! I'm not here to hurt either of you two, just go back to your rooms and leave us be!"
Lucille struggles to let out a few more muffled screams as she thrashes around. Her eyes are filled with confusion and pure rage.
[Miura]: "I take the fact that your confused means that my hunch was right. I'm glad i took precautions using that dampener, or else i might not have been able to handle you at full strength."
Lisa's face lights up even more with rage, the air around her starts to spark and smoke. Julius follows her down the stairs, reaching the bottom next to her, his face burning hot within the radius of Lisa's aura.
[Lisa]: "TAKE THEM OFF!"
Throwing her hands forward with open palms, a large mass of flames appears in front of her, one far larger than the one Julius had seen her use in the alley when they first met. Without a second even passing, the mass of flames fire off towards Miura with incredible speed, hitting him and exploding into a wave of heat and smoke.
[Julius]: "AGH!"
Julius shields his face from the burning heat and stray embers that fly off of the projectile. He looks back up as the cloud of black smoke starts to clear, and Miura's silhouette appears within it.
As it fully clears away, Miura is seen standing in the same place, with his hand held up in front of his face. A sight that shock both Lisa and Julius.
Julius's eyes widen in surprise and shock, but also with disgust at what he sees.
Miura holds up his arm, which resembles that of a drake claw, which is severely mangled and burned, with fresh smoke still emitting from it.
[Lisa]: "Hn!-... What?"
[Miura]: "Tch! Careful where your firin' kid, you coulda' hit my girl here!"
[Lisa]: "YOUR GIRL!?"
[Miura]: "That's right! This lovely maid here is the perfect slave. She's so beautiful and such a hard worker, and then there's the cherry on top, her aspect of cooking! My boss fell in love with her the second he heard about it."
Lucille thrashes around even harder when he says that, a deep face of hatred on her as she stares at him from his shoulder.
Lisa's fists clenched hard beside her, her teeth grinding together at his careless objectification of her beloved maid. A woman that had shared a sort of sisterly love with her.
[Lisa]: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SLAVE!? YOU'RE TAKING LADY LUCILLE AS A SLAVE!?"
[Miura]: "Yes that's correct, now shut up already, your so damn loud!"
Julius is frozen in fear, and is speechless as he watches Lisa throws her arms forward again, but before she can do anything, a large, scaly tail flickers out from behind him with near unperceivable speeds, hitting her in the chest with a loud thud, and knocking her back into Julius, throwing them both onto the ground.
[Lisa]: "AGHH!"
Lucille's muffled screams grow louder as she watches
Miura quickly turns around, his tail that now only extends to just above the ground swaying behind him, he reaches for the door that leads outside.
The hand he reaches out with is suddenly showered with blood, a large vine visible on both sides as it pierces easily through his palm, nearly reaching his face.
[Miura]: "GYAH!"
He sees several more slowly climbing up the front door, he rips his hand out from the vine, releasing it and quickly turning around.
On the other side of the room is a green haired butler, with one of his arms outstretched in front of him, and a blonde haired woman that rushes over to Lisa and Julius with a worried look on her face.
Looking at Lawrence with an angry face, he is slightly put off by his glare. Staring back at him is a Butler bearing a blank face of complete and pure rage. His arm stays up, his eyes don't leave Miura, and his pupils are small and dark. Miura could feel the dark aura emanating from the usually friendly man. It scared him, shook him to his core, but he fought through it to fight back.
[Miura]: "Just let me take her and you will all live! GET BACK!"
His gaze switches to Muriel, who is kneeling over Lisa, being held up by Julius in his lap. Muriel looks back at Miura in fear and confusion as he aims his palm at her.
Everyone watches in disgust and horror as his arm swells up and launches forward with scales and hardened skin covering it.
His attack is cut off halfway before reaching Muriel. Miura's eyes widen in surprise as he sees his arm now pinned to the wall with several shards made of rock. He looks back over at Lawrence, who somehow bears even more hatred.
[Lawrence]: "Miura!"
Lawrence grits his teeth, he starts to tremble with rage.
[Lawrence]: "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT LAYING A SINGLE FINGER ON LADY ASTORIA!"
Several more shards of hard stone appear before Lawrence, before flying at Miura, a few of which hit him in several places.
[Miura]: "AGHH! STOP SQUIRMIN' AROUND WILL YA', MAKIN' IT SO DAMN DIFFICULT TO FIGHT ONE HANDED!"
Miura's arm detaches from his shoulder, making cracking and squelching noises as blood pools all over the ground. Another large mass of flesh and scales swell up on his shoulder, this time much larger.
[Muriel]: "What even are you Miura!? Why are you doing this!? I THOUGHT WE WERE CLOSE YOU BASTARD!"
The mass on Miura's shoulder finally reaches its maximum size, and explodes towards Lawrence, covering the floor and walls around him in blood.
[Miura]: "BLAGH!"
Looking over his hand, Lawrence sees a strange animal in front of Miura. It stands like a dog, and shaped like one, but it is covered in scales and has feathers in a few places, as well as several sharp appendages sprouting seemingly randomly out of its body.
[Lawrence]: "W-what is that!?"
The creature snarls at Lawrence, before running demonically fast at him, leaping forwards with its mouth open, which is met with a block of stone that knocks it down. A victory that is only temporary as it gets up, limping slightly as it continues to charge at Lawrence again.
Miura's body is still and his mouth is wide open as he looks completely beat. His eyes snap towards Muriel, and his shoulder starts to heal rapidly, so fast that it would be good as new in just a minute.
Raising his still regenerating arm towards Muriel, he releases another attack like before, but this time, she tries to hold up her arms to protect herself. His attack goes right over her hands, and a giant animal-like mouth that appears where his hand normally would be latches onto her shoulder, ripping the cloth with ease, and spraying blood over Julius and Lisa.
[Muriel]: "AHHHHHH!"
The blood that covers Julius's face sends another wave of terror through him. He trembles violently and his teeth clatter together, making an audible clicking sound. He wants to move, but his body is frozen, he can only helplessly watch as the number of injuries shoot up by the minute.
[Lucille]: "MMMFFHGH! MMMHFFFGGHHH! MMGHHM!"
Lisa's eyes widen at the sight of her mothers blood filling the air, an infuriating look covering her face, but her body is still too weak to move, all she can let out is a crackling sound as the air around her heats up.
Lawrence finishes his brawl with the monster, forcing a large stone spike into its head with his bare hands, covering them with a deep brown blood. He forces the stake through the back of the creatures head and pushes upwards violently, hearing the snapping of its neck as he turns his attention to Miura again.
His eyes widen and his mouth opens as he sees Muriel with a maw locked onto her shoulder.
[Lawrence]: "LADY ASTORIA!"
The vines that covered the door make their way up Miura's legs, holding him down as one of them swiftly snaps at his extended arm, cutting it in half.
Miura begins to rip his legs out of the vines, and stomps them away with a few frustrated grunts.
[Miura]: "Why are you makin' this so hard for me? Just fuck off and don't get involved. This is bigger than all of you!"
As another larger shard of rock flies towards Miura, he quickly swats it away with his now fully renewed drake hand, and kicks the doors open.
Muriel watches him take off with Lucille over his shoulder, her vision starting to fade darker as Lawrence rushes over and removes the detached piece of scaly flesh.
Lawrence quickly rips a piece of his clothes off, and wraps it around her arm as a temporary way to try and stop the bleeding. With the makeshift bandage secure, he runs out of the manor, stepping onto the stone that precedes the door. His face shifts into one of completely unfiltered anger, his usual expressionless facade has now been fully torn down, his body trembling with rage.
Miura throws Lucille into the back of his carriage, and gets into the seat at the front. Lawrence launches a barrage of stone spikes at it, many of then sticking into the side and back of the carriage as it starts to take off, being dragged along by two high end Drake's, bred purely for transporting heavy loads.
[Lawrence]: "Lad-... Lucille."
His voice is defeated, and he drops to his knees as he sees Miura's cart disappear slowly into the distance, traveling further away from the capital.
[Julius]: "Muriel! We need to get you healed, you're losing a lot of blood."
Hearing more commotion inside, Lawrence gets up and rushes over to Muriel, who is now sitting down on the stairs next to Julius and Lisa, still sitting in his lap with her hand on her mothers leg, looking up at her with concern and fear.
[Lawrence]: "Lady Astoria! Please sit still, I'm going to heal your shoulder. Then you too Lisa. I'll-.... I'll heal all of you!"
He places his hands gently over the bleeding area, a light aura emanating from them, as well as the area he covers. Lisa and Julius watch him with concerned eyes.
[Muriel]: "Ahh. T-thank you Lawrence, dear."
[Lawrence]: "Its not deep, i should be able to heal it fully."
After a few seconds, the aura disappears, and Lawrence removes the ripped cloth, revealing her bare skin underneath, visible through the ripped parts of her red kimono.
[Lawrence]: "How is it?"
Muriel takes a few seconds to move her shoulder and arms around, doing some stretches seemingly with no pain.
[Muriel]: "It's perfect darling. Oh what would we do without you Lawrence, dear."
Lawrence's face adopts its first expression of relief and happiness since he arrived. But he is still shaken up from the whole experience.
After ensuring that Muriel had no other injuries, he moves his attention to Julius, shuffling towards him.
[Julius]: "O-oh, I'm okay, really, heal Lisa before worrying about me."
He pauses for a moment, before looking into his lap where Lisa sits.
[Lawrence]: "Hm. Very well."
He hovers his hands over Lisa, the same light aura appearing for a moment, mending her broken ribs. She flinches in pain for a short moment, before it fades away soothingly.
[Lisa]: "Eh-. Thanks Lawrence."
[Lawrence]: "It's no problem at all, young Lisa."
[Julius]: "Muriel. I-... I'm sorry. I couldn't do anything."
Everyone looks at Julius. Lisa wraps her arms around his, shifting so that she is sideways in his lap, able to face him, her face full of empathy.
[Muriel]: "Oh dear, it's.... It's oka-"
[Lawrence]: "We understand that your weak, Julius. Thank you for apologizing, it was the least you could do for not helping."
His voice was back to its original cold tone, but with a shade of anger within it, which they can also guess is from Lucille being taken.
Julius's stomach drops as he says that, he feels like throwing up from begin so pathetic and helpless. He starts to tear up as he speaks, his voice cracking at the seams.
[Julius]: "M-maybe, if i could have just moved, maybe i could have prevented her from being taken."
Lisa's grip on his arm tightens, she moves closer to him to provide comfort as he starts to cry, but his tears are quickly wiped away by Muriel.
[Muriel]: "Don't think about it dear. He was surprisingly strong, and he had us all fooled, that bastard. Look, right now, lets just focus on getting her back. We need to figure out where he is taking her."
[Lawrence]: "He was headed north east from here from what i saw."
Muriel puts her hand up to her chin in thought, Lawrence also trying to think of what to do next.
[Julius]: "What north east of here?"
[Muriel]: "Not much of anything dear. Just an old town that doesn't see many visitors anymore. Apart from that, there isn't any major landmark that a carriage like that will get you too."
Julius thinks in his head for a moment,his gaze flickering to everyone in the group before looking back at Muriel.
[Julius]: "So they must be heading there then, right?"
[Lawrence]: "It's a good bet, they would need somewhere with population to hide an aura like Lady Lucille's."
[Muriel]: "Lets all go up to my office, we can do proper planning there."
With the group moving to Muriel's office, the silence in the air hangs deadly. The tension of the situation, and the shock that still sets in torments the group, finally arriving at the office door.
They all stand around her desk in silence, thinking, until Julius speaks up about something that had been bothering him.
[Julius]: "I'm sorry, i know that its kind of off topic. But its about something Miura said."
Everyone's gaze turn to Julius, sending a sense of embarrassment and awkwardness through him.
[Muriel]: "Go ahead dear, What was it?"
[Julius]: "Miura said that his hunch was right. When Lucille was confused about her constraints? What was he right about?"
The room falls silent. Even Muriel contemplates telling him the truth, with a small thought in her mind that he is still untrustworthy, but decides to gamble it, and tell him.
Julius's eyes widen when he hears Muriel speak, both shocked and impressed at the information that he is trusted with.
[Julius]: "I- I see... It makes sense now why he took so many precautions to restrain her."
[Muriel]: "Mmh. She's a truly remarkable woman, but now isn't the time to awe over her dear."
[Julius]: "Right. I'll think about it another time."
The room brainstorms ideas to rescue Lucille, all of them sub-optimal. Julius stands in silence, his head completely filled with thoughts. Thoughts about how useless he is, how hopeless he is, and how weak he is. He was too weak to save someone that he considered to be his friend.
He wanted to help. He never wanted to feel like that again. Feel like he couldn't move a muscle in his body out of fear, and let people get hurt. With all these thoughts, he is hit hard with an idea.
The table seems to take notice of his changed demeanor, Muriel noticing how his eyes suddenly widened.
[Muriel]: "Are you okay dear? Did you think of something."
With a strong feeling flowing through Julius's body, he turns his gaze to Muriel, with a fierce and fiery look on his face.
[Julius]: "Muriel. Do you happen to know anyone high ranking from the palace that could do us a small favor?"
She looks back at him with confusion, not knowing where he is headed with this, but goes along with it anyway. Lisa and Lawrence flicker their eyes between the two as they talk, with Lisa still wrapping her arms around Julius's.
[Muriel]: "Hmm. Well, I guess I do know a guy who still owes me a thing or two from the capital. Why do you ask?"
Everyone at the table looks at Julius, who has a fiery expression, something rare to see from him. He smiles as he speaks, catching everyone off guard with his sudden mood shift.
[Julius]: "It might not work at all. But if your willing to gamble with me, I have an idea."
The three look at him for a moment before adopting smiles as well, Especially Lisa, who looks up at him with renewed energy, and clings tighter to his arm.
[Julius]: "Everyone. Please listen closely..."
-
Damp dripping sounds are heard. The bricks on the floor are cold, and hard, and most importantly, incredibly uncomfortable to wake up on.
Lucille opens her eyes, to see the moist ceiling, covered in moss and chains. She sits up suddenly, looking around breathlessly. She doesn't see anyone, and her breathing starts to calm down as she sharply glances around the room.
It's a dark cold room made of stone. Bars cover a whole side of the room, that allow her to see past into a corridor down to the side. The walls are empty except for some chains and a thickly barred window.
Her restraints are still firmly locked onto her wrists and neck. Both of them glowing a deep blue hue. As she once again starts to realize how helpless she is, she collapses to her knees, tears starting to form in her eyes. She looks up out of the window, reaching up and grabbing one of the bars, looking up at the bright full moon that shines down upon her cell. The same moon that is clearly visible through the window in Muriel's Office.
She stares up at it, her mind subconsciously wandering back to memories of her childhood. Memories she tries to keep deeply buried down. The tears start to fall down her face, when she begins to hear subtle, but heavy footsteps, coming from the hallway. All she can do is watch the doorway, waiting. For someone. For anything. When the footsteps stop, and no one appears, she slowly looks back up to the moon, it's golden light shining in her eyes, that glisten so brightly with her tears. She tries over and over, but she cant stop herself from digging up old forgotten memories, reignited by the moons glow. Her eyes are hurt, and her soul is damaged, and if there is anything she wants to do the most, It's to keep those memories far away from her...
---