Chapter 1 Little Town (That Hates Julchen)
Seventeen year old Julchen skipped through the little French town she had moved to five years ago at her father's insistence. Something about her being safe. She would have much rather been with Arthur on the high seas learning how to sail and fight on a ship.
All around her the town was waking up. People leaned out of their windows greeting their next door neighbors.
She skipped up to the baker who greeted her as always with a booming "Bonjour Julchen, how are you today mademoiselle?" The baker was a large but gentle man that always took the time to ask her how she was even if he was in the middle of a huge order.
"Very good. How are you?"
"Well enough. What does Francis need for nourishment today?" He asked referring to the man Julchen had been staying with.
"Just the usual." He gave her some loaves of bread and she paid for them. She skipped off, grabbing the book she had been reading out of her basket.
She had taken to reading out of sheer boredom and had quickly become addicted to the feel of reading. She opened the book and started to read as she walked.
As she passed some older women and overheard their conversation. "Oh look there she is. That girl is strange but special." One of them said.
"Dazed and distracted can't you tell?" A second one commented.
"Yes with that dreamy far off look and her nose stuck in that book." A third one said.
"Though you have to admit she is very beautiful if in a exotic, ghostly way." The first said.
"Yes, yes she is." The two other women said together.
Julchen shook her head, chuckling at the women's musings, they had no idea how how special she was, and kept on her path to the bookstore. She finished book by the time she had gotten store.
She closed the book and pushed open the door the little bell jingling to signal her arrival. Inside the shop was the rather-young-for-a-bookkeeper bookkeeper. He was tall for the most part, reaching past Julchen by a hand, and was muscular. The muscles, he told her, came from lifting books more than actual exercise. Light brown hair was pulled back into a small ponytail, as was fashion, but if it had been let out it would've reached the edge of his jaw. A small curl protruded from the middle of his skull and curled out like a fountain's spray. Green eyes peered from over half-spectacles and he smiled tiredly at her. It looked like he had been trying to talk to another customer, a small boy with pinkish orange hair, who left as soon as she came. The bookkeeper sighed as the boy left, like he had failed at something.
"Hallo Heracles here's the book I borrowed." She said handing him the book.
"Already? It's only been a day." She smiled shyly and rocked back and forth on her toes her head bent down. "You're getting faster. Well what would you like now?"
She ran along the shelves and running her hands along the book's spines. She stopped and pulled out one of her favorites. "This one." She said holding it out.
"Really? You've read it three time already haven't you?"
"I know but it's just so awesome! I love it. Castles, adventures, daring sword fights, a prince in disguise. I can just barely put it down."
"Well if you like it that much you should have it." He offered.
"Really?" Heracles nodded. Julchen hugged him quickly. "Thank you thank you thank you! You are the awesomest person in the world!" She said running out of the shop.
"Glad I could be of help." Heracles said to the empty building.
Julchen walked through the town her nose stuck in her book. Luciano watched her. After he had been kicked out of the palace guard for the Sultan by little Princess Elizabeta he had traveled all over Europe looking for a way to support himself and his useless older brother, Flavio. Finally he had found himself in this little French village by the ocean. He had offered his services as a guard to the few rich people in the town and quickly got a job. After he had gotten settled he had worked his way up the social ladder until he was the most popular man in town.
Flavio waltzed up to his brother his blond hair flopping around his face. One stray curl on the left side of his head seemed to possess a mind of its own bouncing even more than the rest of his hair.
Luciano grabbed his brother and made him look at Julchen. "Flavio do you know who that is?"
"Um yeah, she's that girl Julchen, the albino that lives with Francis the crazy inventor." Flavio said.
"And soon to be my wife." Luciano said a hint of victory in his voice.
"Wait you asked her?"
"No." Luciano waved off his brother's complaints. "No one could ever refuse me. Especially not her. At least if she wants to stay in this town much longer. If she refuses me I'll just let the towns folk burn her like they want to. It won't matter that much to me then."
"Um well you need to ask her. Go and talk to her."
"I was just on it." Luciano explained. He march confidently up to Julchen walking behind her. He plucked the book out of her hands.
"Hey!" She exclaimed turning around. "Luciano give that back. It's mine."
He flipped through the book, holding it sideways he inquired, "How can you read this? It doesn't even have any pictures."
"I don't need pictures. I have an imagination unlike you." She swiped the book from him.
"You know I don't think women should read as much as you do." He remembered how much Princess Elizabeta liked to read. "You read too much and you get too many ideas."
Julchen looked at him like he was crazy. "Luciano you are positively barbaric."
He didn't know what that last word meant. "Thank you. I was wondering how Francis is doing?"
"Why should you want to know?" An explosion came from the direction of Francis' house. "Francis!" She screamed and ran off towards the house she called home.
Julchen threw open the door and entered the smoke filled front room. She coughed a few times. "Francis? Are you okay?" She called out into the smoke.
"I'm fine." The nineteen year old French man called back.
Her sigh of relief turned into another cough. She threw open the windows. The smoke cleared revealing the thing that exploded. It was a brass machine nearly six feet wide and as tall as her. Vials of different colored liquid stuck out of the machine at weird angles. "What happened to her?" She asked Francis running her hand over the machine's side.
The French man's face was covered in soot. His blond hair seemed almost black in some areas because of how dirty it was. He stood next to her and kicked the bottom of the machine out of frustration. "I don't know what's the problem. I don't know how to fix her. Jules they're counting on me being at that convention in one week with a working machine. The convention is a two day trip away. That only gives me gives five days to figure this out."
She laughed. "We could stay up all night working on it."
Francis snapped his finger. "Mon Dieu! Julchen you are genius."
A few hours later Julchen sat on the counter talking to Francis as she ate and he worked. "I got a new book from the book shop today and Heracles said I could keep it."
"That's great Jules." He answered distractedly.
"Francis are you even really listening to me?"
"Mmm. Oui. Definitely."
She looked at him incredulously. Then in a deadpan voice said, "I met someone called the Doctor today. He talked a lot of nonsense and he pulled me off into his TARDIS. I traveled to Ancient Rome and the future where they have little boxes that they talk into to communicate with each other."
"That awesome Jules." He mused.
She slapped his foot. "Francis!"
"Sorry. I'm just a little preoccupied."
"I can tell." They both laughed.
A few days later the machine was finished. Francis packed it into the wagon and prepared to set off. As he saddled up the pure white stallion by the light of the sunrise. Julchen came out with some food and a blanket.
"Are you sure you have everything?" She asked worried he would have forgotten something important like always.
He nodded a strap of leather in his mouth. He finished tightening the saddle and said, "I have everything. I triple checked. It's sweet of you to worry but you don't need to."
"Fine. Do you know the way there?"
"Oui."
"Repeat it to me."
"Fine. Turn left on the first and second forks. At the third fork in the woods I need to right and then when I get to the village I need to simply ask for directions to the convention."
"Good." She gave him a quick hug in parting. "Be safe don't do anything stupid. If you die I will kill you in the afterlife."
"I got it. I got it." Francis said with a chuckle climbing up onto the white horse.
Julchen heard the doorbell ring later that day. She pulled down the device Francis had made when she was thirteen so she could see out the front door peephole without stretching up on her tippy toes every time as it had been hurting her toes. She saw Luciano outside the door. She sighed and put the device back in its usual spot. She opened the door as let him in.
He waltzed in and plopped down on chair swinging his feet up onto the table. His muddy boots lay on her book which luckily was closed. She shutter at his mistreatment of her book.
"Julchen do you remember our conversation from a few days ago."
"You mean the one that was blessedly stopped by Francis' machine exploding? If so then yes."
"That's the one. Anyway I was going to ask you something later on in that conversation but we got cut off before I could."
"What was your question Luciano?" She bit.
"I would like to ask you to marry me." Her jaw dropped and he laughed. "I know you're speechless. So will you?"
She knew that outright refusing him would make her a social outcast, well more of one than she was, but she didn't really want to marry him. "Sorry, but this is a little sudden. Could I think on it?"
Now it was his turn to be speechless. "Y-yeah you can think over it. That's totally fine. I want your answer in five days though."
She pushed him out of the house. "Thanks for the nice visit Luciano!" She shut the door hard sending the already off balance man into the mud. When he had left she looked at herself. "He asked me to be his wife. Imagine that me his little wife. I'm too awesome for him to handle."
Francis petted his stallion's side. He looked up at the sky worried about it raining. He got to a fork in the road. "Wait, was this one the second fork or the third?" He said out loud. "Do you know?" He asked the horse. "Of course you don't, you're a horse. I think it's the second though." He pulled the reigns turning the horse left.
As he got farther and farther into the forest it became more and more overgrown as if no one had been there in at least ten years. When he saw the castle he knew he had gone the wrong way.
He tried to turn the horse around but a flash of lighting and the roar of thunder spooked the horse causing it to throw it to throw him and the cart. It started to rain really hard.
The horse bolted. "Wait! Stop!" Francis called after the horse. He shivered and looked at the castle. "Well I might as well go in."
Julchen closed the barn door and slid down it. She rubbed her eyes and looked down the path. The figure of a horse in the distance made her stand up.
The white horse ran up to her. She dove out the way as not to be trampled. She held up her hands. "Woah, woah, woah." Her heart raced as she calmed down the animal. "Woah. Wait why are you here? Where's Francis?" She realized where he must be. "Francis." Julchen pulled on her cloak and swung onto the horse's back and rode off in the direction he had headed earlier that day.