Plus, there was the clue that it was in London, and the fact that I was really wanting to know what happened to Lucie. :)

Congratulations, TLM, your one little comment has caused me to create an entire spin-off story! As you could probably guess from the summary, this is Little Lucie's entire backstory, picking up from a few years after Miss Power was taken back to Lexicon. Now, is it necessary for you to read this story in order to understand Beauty in Word in Heart? No, not really, although it certainly would be helpful. I will incorporate certain things from this spin-off into the main story, and it will provide set up for a future plot point in Word and Heart. It's also good to read these chapters in the chronological order in which I post them, because certain chapters in this provide some extra background context for corresponding chapters in Word and Heart and contain little parallels. So in short, do you need to read this? No, but I'd highly recommend it.

Also, as some of you may remember, Little Lucie is a character from the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickins, and this story is founded entirely off my seriously twisted headcanon from the wikipedia page. So what does my godfather (the awesome person who beta-edited this chapter!) do to solve that? He gets me A Tale of Two Cities for my birthday. Thanks for destroying every single twisted idea I had about it! Fortunately though, I've already planned out most of this story, and by the time I decipher all that Olde English, I'll have already finished writing this!

London, England 1868

The rain heavily pounded the road as the horse-drawn carriage rolled along in the silent night. Shivering in the cold, seven-year-old Little Lucie pulled her threadbare wool coat tighter around her body in an effort to preserve her body warmth. The girl's somber eyes looked forlornly at the indistinct silhouettes of the London homes, shaded in varying greys and blacks from the waning light of dusk as she wondered where on earth she was being taken.

Tired of this long journey, Lucie sighed and slumped against the velvet cushions of the carriage. She smoothed out her ivory lace summer dress and straightened her pale blonde curls. Then, running out of other things to do, she reverted to staring dejectedly out of the window once more.

After to what seemed like an eternity for Lucie, she heard the horses' trotting steps come to a halt as the door swung open to reveal the coach driver, politely holding the door open for the young lady.

Timidly, Lucie descended the few short steps before her shoes made contact with the slick brick road. The rain immediately drenched the poor girl, causing her hair to become a matted, tangled disaster within a matter of seconds.

"Where are we?" Lucie asked, feeling nervous about her new surroundings.

The coachman ignored Lucie's question, instead saying, "Mr. Carton instructed me to leave you here." He then swung the carriage door shut and proceeded to ready the horses for the trek back home.

"Wait!" Lucie cried desperately as he took his seat in the front, bridle in hand. "Where am I supposed to go? Who's going to meet me?"

"I know not, halfling girl," the coachman replied coldly, his unsympathetic face set in ice, "nor is it my concern."

"But what about Mr. Sydney Carton?" she asked. "He is my legal guardian."

"He was until he discovered you were part Lexiconian. Believe me, this is where you belong."

"No!" Lucie screamed, looking an absolute wretch in the grim London rain. "Please, don't leave me! I don't have anywhere else to go!"

But her pleas went unheard as with the crack of the whip, the driver rode the horses into the night, leaving a lost girl looking after him with eyes wide with anguish.

"Please… please don't leave me here," she whimpered long after the carriage had rolled out of sight, her voice but a mere whisper against the thundering rage of the world. "I… I don't want to be all alone."

Without the carriage blocking her view, Lucie turned her head to see the building she was standing before. It was a large, menacing place, tainted in the grey of children's tears. Wiping her own tears from her eyes, Lucie just managed to make out the name of the building from the flickering gas lamps on the corner of the street:

Miss Minckin's Asylum for Mentally Disturbed Boys and Girls

Oh no, Lucie thought to herself in terror as she backed away from the cursed place. She knew what the word asylum meant, as if she needed any definition. She had seen what children in there were like. Rasping in foreign tongues, conversing with invisible spirits, convulsing violently in sporadic, inexplicable spasms, all the children had grey, haunted eyes that reflected their numerous tortures. No one ever came out from an asylum, for they were all dead inside, at least in the ways that mattered. During the short time Lucie had lived by an asylum, she remembered hearing the rattling of metal bars, followed immediately by the unearthly screams of the children contained inside. Lucie had always stayed awake during those days, trembling in terror, terror that she would one day join them in that place, that the doors would swing shut behind her, trapping her forever in a living hell. That she would one day be that haunted girl on the other side of the window pleading for an escape that would never come, mouthing screams that would forever go unheard, crying as her life would slowly but surely be drained away until all that remained was a dry, cold husk.

Lucie couldn't believe all her nightmares were finally coming to fruition. Her entire body seemed to lock down with shock: her knees buckled, her mouth cried out in blood-curdling shrieks, and her head spun upward to meet the stars. Her heart started to beat twice as fast as if to make up for her body's sudden meltdown. It drummed faster and faster to the point where it physically hurt, as though it were trying to gouge its way out of her body before being dragged into that dreadful place.

The lights in the asylum turned on, revealing the silhouette of a middle-aged woman, apparently awoken by Lucie's screams. She shouted and emphatically gestured for others inside the house to join her.

Come on. I have to get up. I have to run away.

But try as she might, her limbs did not obey. She simply lay there, curled in a trembling heap on the muddy brick road as she felt despair crush her heart. Lucie saw the whole world through a dazed trance, brought forth by her own refusal to believe in this nightmare.

She only fully came back to reality when she was dimly aware of two sets of arms roughly hauling her off the London street and into the asylum.

"No! No! NO!" Lucie screamed as two burly men hauled her away. Out the corner of her eye, Lucie could see the slowly gathering crowd, awoken by her shouting, all dressed in their nightgowns and caps, with an occasional few holding a candle to flicker in the night. None of their faces showed any sympathy, most instead bearing combinations of annoyance and disgust. Some of the women huddled in groups and whispered as they watched the struggle unfold, treating the event as if it were some sort of performance instead of a condemnation of an innocent girl's sanity. Their unmoved faces mocked Lucie as none lifted a finger to help her in her plight. In vain, Lucie fought against her captors: she thrashed, she kicked, she bit, anything to make them relinquish their grip. But Lucie was not the first child unwilling to be condemned to such an awful place, and the two guards were practiced in dealing with such unruly children.

The door was coming closer. In a last-ditch effort, Lucie flung out both hands to latch hold on the wooden porch post. But the men were merciless to Lucie, and with nearly inhuman strength, they dragged the demon child, cursing and screaming, into the asylum. Lucie cried out in pain as her fingernails screeched against the floorboards, causing jagged streaks in the wood, stained with the crimson of her now bleeding nails.

With one last tortured cry, Lucie opened her eyes to catch one last glimpse of the world she loved, or at least, [she] used to love.

At that moment, in the midst of a thousand cruel faces, Lucie wondered why she was fighting so hard. What was there in this world that was worth fighting for? What was there to love?

Maybe there was nothing at all.

Surrendering completely, Lucie allowed herself to be silently dragged into the insane asylum. Only when she heard the heavy thud of the grand double doors swinging shut did she raise her eyes. Then, Lucie gently pried herself free from the grip of the asylum's bodyguards and, as if in a dream, slowly walked over to the grimy window.

And although Lucie was inside, it felt as though she was the one on the outside looking in, watching the rest of the world go by in a haze. In despair, Lucie pressed one hand to the frigid windowpane then closed her eyes, her aching heart unable to bear seeing it anymore.

It was finally done. She had crossed to the other side of the veil. She was abandoned.

"Mommy," Lucie whispered to herself as salty tears drenched her cheeks. "Mommy, I'm so sorry. Please come back for me. Please, I'll do anything if you just love me again."

Oh yeah, did I mention that this story will be horribly depressing? Well if you didn't know that, you do now!

So, how will these updates work? Well, I will be alternating between an update of this story and Word and Heart until Halfling finishes. A Halfling's Tale will be much shorter, though, only about six chapters and averaging... meh, roughly about 3000-5000 words long, about half the length of Word and Heart's. And as you could probably tell based on this chapter, this will not contain the bulk of the quality; this simply serves the purpose of giving me a short break from writing complex plot archs in favor of simple, short little bursts of depression, a lot like how Fall from Grace was, only with less of a storyline.

As for updates on both my stories, they'll be very sporadic and irregular, with anywhere from 1/2 a week to a full week gap. Don't even try to formulate some sort of a schedule; it just won't work. This is because chapters for Halfling will greatly vary in length, with one being four Word pages and the next reaching nine. That's why it's very important to also follow this story too, even if you don't like it, just so you know the updates. As of now, expect Chapter 1 of Word and Heart around Monday, although I can't guarantee it, since I will also have to work on writing my speech in the hopes of being selected to be the valedictorian for my graduation. Taking on three writing projects simultaneously: I am the epitome of ambitious. :D

Love to all,

Bella