Andare all'Inferno e tornare insieme

by Connan-l

If Maria could pinpoint the biggest mistake of her life, maybe it would be the day she met Jacopo and decided to talk to him instead of moving on, following him blindly on his path to Hell. [Jacopo & Maria, A Requiem for Innocence]

2. Part 2

Maria didn't know what she expected exactly when Jacopo came back to the brothel after having disappeared for an entire week, but it certainly wasn't for him to bring her back some half-dead gremlin.

The girl he had saved was the embodiment of everything she didn't like to deal with: she was too young, too scrawny, too traumatized, and she looked as if someone had tried to boil her and cut her into pieces. And her personality was even worse — an asocial, cynical pest annoyingly pious who spent her time glaring at her as if she was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen. Which was bullshit, because first, Maria was incredibly fucking hot, and second, it was really some peak of irony given the hideous scars that plagued her own face.

And Jacopo wanted Maria to take care of that brat. Well, he had said he was going to do it too, but as the kid was going to live at the brothel, most of the task was still going to come back to her.

It wasn't like Maria was completely unsympathetic to the girl. She did feel bad for the poor thing — she was almost painful to look at, really. But she still wasn't a sentimental dumbass like Jacopo, and she knew what taking a kid under her wing implicated. Especially a kid with a billion problems like that girl. Of course, Maria hadn't been the only one very opposed to the idea. Ophélie and a few other girls were pretty vocally against it, but Jacopo was still able to get Iris and some more on his side, which managed to work out a comprise. That didn't mean Maria felt happy about the whole thing, though. But then Iris made her notice that she had practically done the same thing years ago with Jacopo, and although Maria argued that no, this was different, she wasn't entirely wrong, either.

In any case, it was decided the girl would stay at the brothel — but it had barely been a week since this decision was taken that Maria already regretted it.

"C'mon, are you really gonna stay locked up in there all day?"

"I refuse to set a foot in a place in which such sinful activities took place."

"'Sinful activities,'" Maria repeated before rolling her eyes.

That girl was seriously worse than the freakin' nuns from the orphanage. At least she could talk with those ladies without getting insulted. Trying to speak to this kid was like talking to a wall of bricks.

"Listen, uh… Morgana, was it?" That was how Jacopo had told her she was called, because she sure on earth wouldn't have told her her name by herself. "I get you don't like this place, but if you're gonna live here, you'll have to make at least an effort."

"I do not see why I should make any efforts to get along with filthy women."

Maria groaned. "Okay. Fine. If you hate us this much, you can also take your cute little ass and get the fuck outta here."

For a moment, there was no answer, until Maria thought she heard a sigh from behind the door. "I would…"

The rest of the sentence was too soft for Maria to make it out, but she decided it didn't matter. Fine, if she wanted to be a brat and stay locked up inside that room until the end of her life, then whatever. Maria had better things to do. Given Jacopo was so fucking hellbent in taking care of this tiny monster, then he would deal with her later himself. She didn't see why she should bother.

If at least the kid was such an ass only towards her, Maria could deal with, but the problem was that she acted like this with everyone. Women with tough characters like Ophélie weren't much of a problem, but she couldn't help but get angry whenever Iris kindly tried to befriend the little girl with a sweet smile to only be met with coldness and thinly veiled insults about what an "impure woman" she was.

But unfortunately, Morgana wasn't the only annoying thing Jacopo had brought back with him from the lord's mansion.

"C'mon, just a little drink! Can't cost ya much t' accept, yeah?"

"I— I'd love to, but, um, well… we're going to start working soon, so…"

Maria heaved another deep sigh. Today was just a problem after another, it seemed. In the brothel's entrance was Lili, laughing awkwardly while she was desperately trying to get rid of the blond man-bear Jacopo had recently gotten all buddy with. She crossed her arms and stepped in front of Lili protectively, glaring at the man.

"How many times do I need to tell you to leave my girls alone?" Maria spat out to him. "I don't care what's your relationship with Jacopo — if you have no money, you have nothing to do here, Gaston."

Lili profited of her intervention to throw her a thankful gaze and quickly retreat inside the brothel. Maria may be younger, but it was well-known that she was the best when it came to deal with clingy or otherwise annoying men.

"It's Gratien," the man replied dryly. "An' what make ya say I've got no money?"

Maria eyed him from head to toe and arched an eyebrow. "You do?"

Gratien grimaced and scratched his neck. "Well, er— nah."

Maria rolled her eyes. She had met Gratien about three days after Jacopo brought Morgana here. As soon as Jacopo introduced him and Maria saw his big dumb smile, she knew he was going to be troubles, but the guy still tried to flirt with her so she punched him, and Jacopo just uttered a 'told you so.' She and Gratien have been on bad terms ever since, and Maria had no intention of getting along with him, anyway. She didn't know what Jacopo saw in this man, but to her he was just another annoyance in her life. Well, at least she didn't have to shelter and feed this one for free, she supposed.

"Then get the hell out of here. Dunno what Jacopo told you, but we're not a charity here."

"Damn. That's one hell of a gal ol' Jacopo's bangin'. How can he even stand ya?"

"Well why don't you go ask him yourself? And Jacopo and I never 'banged.' We don't have that kind of relationship."

Gratien snorted and looked at her as if she had just cracked a bad joke. "That's what he told me too. But that can't possibly be true, yeah?"

Being asked this question by every single person she came across was honestly exhausting. Did she and Jacopo really look that intimate? Well, they were close, it was true. And Maria did have fun teasing him once or twice about him having a crush on her when they were kids. But it had been some sort of silent understanding between them that they would only always be platonic friends. Sleeping with him never once crossed her mind, not even when they first met and barely knew each others, and she was certain Jacopo felt the same. Honestly, just the idea of sleeping with him felt pretty gross to her — it would be like sleeping with her little brother or something. Though given how much of a prude, inexperienced virgin Jacopo was, it could be kind of funny too.

"It is true. But you can believe whatever you want, I don't care. I've had enough problems dealing with the girl Jacopo brought back, now I'd just like to prepare the brothel before the opening."

Gratien grinned in an understanding way. "Oh yeah, that girl. She sure sounds like a brat, huh. Still don't get why Jacopo's so obsessed with 'er. She ain't even pretty."

Maria sighed. She had sort of asked herself the same thing during the past few days Morgana had been there, to be honest. "Yeah, well… He'll deny it, but Jacopo's the sentimental type. He feels bad for her."

"It's not like I don't feel bad for 'er too, but there's still limits t' this. I also saw what Barnier did t' her. That's pretty fucked up. I still wouldn't've risked our entire plan t' save 'er ass, though."

"What he did to her…? She was a slave too, wasn't she?"

Maria actually didn't know much about the girl. Jacopo had just told her she'd been 'tortured' by the lord, but that was all. Given she'd heard Gratien was a slave of Barnier, she assumed it had been the same for Morgana, but…

"Hmm? Nah, she wasn't. Well… I'm not really sure what she was, but she wasn't kept with th' rest of us. He just tied 'er up on an altar, drained 'er from 'er blood an' drink it with all the other crazy nobles. Guess she was some sort of high class, personal slave?"

He shrugged in a way that told her this had happened so many times he had became pretty desensitized to it, which made her grimace. It was pretty well-known all over the land what a monster the lord was, and she had known herself some rumors about what some of his 'banquets' constituted to, but still… It was never pleasant to hear about those torture sessions, especially when they were inflicted on children.

"Anyway. Given Miss Killjoy don't want me 'ere, guess I'll just have t' spend time with th' pub's cute barmaid again."

"Don't be an asshole to her or I'll kick your ass. She's too nice for you."

Gratien laughed loudly in a way that made her wonder if he thought she was joking (she wasn't), and he waved at her before disappearing at the corner of the street. She slowly walked back inside the brothel, but her thoughts were preoccupied with what Gratien had just told her. She looked over at the room in which Morgana had locked herself into, but she was making no signs of wanting to get out.

In reality, Maria had a good idea of why Jacopo seemed to had gotten so attached to that girl, and by extension why she had allowed her to live here too.

Because the truth was… that Morgana couldn't help but make her think of Jacopo when she had first met him.

The two of them were very distinct — opposite even, in some ways — but quiet, cynical, sharp-tongued Morgana, who always had her head down and couldn't bring herself to look at people in the eyes, who fidgeted and tried to ran away at the slightest human contact or at any personal questions like a stray cat, was eerily reminiscent of the prickly foreign boy with distrustful dark eyes who considered everyone like his enemy she had met about seven years ago.

Jacopo was very different now, and barely any shadows of that vulnerable, traumatized child existed behind the walls he had built up around himself, but when she looked at that girl, sometimes, she couldn't help but see him.

And she wondered if Jacopo was aware of that, too.

She wondered if he could see himself in this child, and if that was why, no matter how cold and harsh she would act towards him and everyone else, he still kept coming back to her.

Because he knew what she was going through, and didn't want her to be alone in that. Wanted to make her understand she didn't have to be alone.

Maria sighed one last time, then slowly approached the door. She tapped gently against the wooden surface.

"Hey, uh. Morgana." She took an inspiration. "Sorry 'bout what I said earlier. I get you don't like us. I get you hate this place. But, well… none of us want to hurt you here, okay? So you may not believe me, but, um, there's no need to be so suspicious of us like that…" Maria sighed. "Anyway, we'll open soon, but there's still food in the kitchen. If you're still hungry, or something…"

She waited a little bit, but there was no answer. Well, she hadn't really expected any.

She had just thought that… if she had been able to be patient and understanding with Jacopo back then, then she could do the same with this girl too.

---

It was painfully obvious how enamored Jacopo was with Morgana.

Whenever he saw her or talked with her, there was always this warmth and tenderness in his eyes; his smile softened and he spoke to her in a gentle tone he only ever used around her.

He just seemed happier with her in general, too. More… free. Kinder, even. He smiled more naturally, was more at peace with himself. Whenever he would come back from visiting her at the graveyard, he had always this ridiculous, blissful expression that seemed to say that even if the world ended he wouldn't care. And although Maria rolled her eyes and poked fun at him for it, she had to admit it was just nice to see him like that — just comfortable and smiling and happy. It made her feel content, too — which she hadn't been in a while because of her anxieties about Jacopo and their friendship.

However, that still opened another whole can of problems — principally his feelings for Morgana. Because yes, at this point, it wasn't really a secret to a lot of people. Maria could see it, Iris and Lili and all the other girls at the brothel could see it, even that big oaf Gratien and the morons of the gang could see it.

Everyone could see it. Well, everyone except the two primary concerned, apparently.

Things had gotten even more painful after the Midsummer festival — and Jacopo, especially, had became a real pain in the ass. The festival in itself had been great — it had been a while, actually, since Maria had this much fun — and it had been delightful to just hang out with everyone and enjoy the celebratory mood and the music and the dance.

Jacopo had even let himself play music, which had surprised Maria — the guy always had a gift for it, and she loved it whenever he would sing or play an instrument he'd managed to snatch somewhere, but for some reason, despite obviously enjoying himself, he found it embarrassing and almost never did it, like the fool he was. It was probable he had made an exception this time for Morgana — the girl truly managed to bring out the best in him.

In any case, it was afterwards that things became complicated — for the days following that night, he actively started to avoid Morgana — almost running away from her whenever he saw her, really. And Morgana might be the densest child in the world, but even she had picked up on the obvious something's-going-on-with-the-dude clues. So Maria tried to confront him about it, but he always awkwardly tried to dodge her and her questions. At the same time, he still was well decided to keep on putting that goddamn ointment on her, so the two of them interacting had started to become quite the circus, resulting in scenes such as this one:

"Like I said, you just— you know, you just have to put the ointment! I can do the face, but now you have to do the rest yourself!"

"I don't understand why. You never minded doing the rest by yourself before. Also, if you won't do it, then I see no interest in bothering myself."

"God, why are you always being so difficult? It's just— you know, you're starting to grow up now, so it's… uh, it's uncomfortable for a guy to do this."

"Fine, then we can stop with the ointment altogether."

"No! That's not what I'm saying! You still need the ointment, I just don't want to have to put it on you… anymore."

"You are making absolutely no sense."

Maria watched them from afar with a tired look, legs crossed and cheek on her hand. The more she watched them arguing awkwardly the more she felt her soul leave her body.

"Boss, Boss!"

All of a sudden, a pair of plump arms wrapped themselves around her neck, almost strangling her and making her jump out of her seat. The first few times this happened, Maria had almost punched the girl and yelled at her. But now, she was just too used to it to care.

"Ceren, you're strangling me."

"W-Waaah, whoops, sowwy, Boss! But, but — I was lookin' for ya all 'round! T'was like ya disappeared! Was scared ya'd gotten kidnapped o' somethin'!"

I'm not you, Maria almost snapped in annoyance, but bit her tongue before she did. Ceren always acted like her rather troubled past was no big deal, but that didn't mean Maria was cruel enough to crack jokes about it.

"Hmm? What's that? Is something's happenin' with Jacky an' Morgs?" Ceren brusquely asked upon noticing the two of them a few meters away.

"Nah, nothin'. Jacopo's just fighting with her, as per usual."

"Weeeh, again? They've lots of weird fights lately, no?"

Ceren scrunched up her nose and frowned, as if deep in thoughts, and Maria snorted. If even she noticed something was off, then that meant things were really that bad, huh. Though Ceren did have some odd flashes of pragmatism sometimes, which made her all the more confusing.

It was going to be about five months now since she joined the brothel, and Maria was surprised by how much she ended up getting attached to this weird girl in so little time. She'd always cared deeply about all the ladies who came to work at the brothel and would fight for each of them without a second thought, of course, but at first she honestly thought she'd have troubles with this one. And while there were still times she ended up incredibly frustrated with her and just wanted to punch her lights out, it was just nice to have this cute small ball of energy and sunshine and happiness around. It felt quite comforting, especially in their environment.

"They're just dumbasses, the both of them," Maria finally replied. "Ignore them."

And then she ruffled Ceren's brown hair in an affectionate way. Ceren probably didn't get why, but she still immediately flashed her a big smile, and that was enough.

Ceren wasn't the only one Maria had been surprised to grow fond of. In the two years or so Morgana had been there, the young girl had managed to carve her place at the brothel and belong there, in a way that would feel off if she were to disappear one day. She couldn't work, but she'd started taking care of the chores and the cooking — and while it wasn't much, it was still one task Maria and the others didn't have to worry about. She'd also began this weird task of gathering the slums' corpses and burying them in a makeshift graveyard she made herself — which, well, Maria thought this was creepy as fuck, but in a way it was nice she had found a hobby. She'd stopped badmouthing the women at the brothel, and she would even make small talk with them or show concerns for their well-being. She could even be kind of cute sometimes, honestly.

It did take quite a lot of efforts and time, though — and she was still far from being open or friendly with any of them. But she was getting there, and at the end of the day Maria still considered her like being part of her family by now.

Well, there was one person Morgana was actually pretty open with. Maria looked up towards Jacopo who was still grumbling at the girl. She wondered if he was aware of that — of how much he had managed to gain Morgana's trust. Probably not, given how big of a fool he was.

Maria sighed. Maybe it was time to have an actual serious discussion with Jacopo about his recent tricky relationship development with Morgana — and this time to not let him run away. So that was how, a few days later, she decided to go knock on his door during a rare day off, and after a bit of small talks and some drinks, she bluntly asked:

"So. Are we going to talk about it or not?"

Jacopo looked at her curiously and cocked an eyebrow. "Talk about what?"

"About your feelings for Morgana, idiot," Maria replied, not before rolling her eyes at him.

Predictably, Jacopo coughed on his drink, then looked at her with wide eyes.

"I-I'm sorry, my what?"

"Oh, please! Don't try to play innocent with me. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Honestly, it was kind of offensive that he had seriously thought he could hide something like that from her. A part of her also sort of felt hurt that he had, actually, hid something like that from her at all. You'd thought developing feelings for someone for the first time would be important enough to share with your oldest and closest friend, but apparently not in Jacopo's dumb brain.

Though, she had to admit it was kinda funny to see him desperately deny her claims when she only suggested she may have caught up on his ridiculous little crush.

"Don't be absurd! She's eleven, remember? Of course I'm not going to have a thing for an eleven-year-old kid! That'd be hella creepy!"

"You don't say."

"You are not trying to imply I have any kinds of skeevy thoughts towards Morgana, are you? Because I swear I would never lay a finger on her, for God's sake! I would never even think about it!"

"Dude, I know that. I'm not accusing you of anything, so calm down a bit, would ya?"

Yeah, of course she was aware Morgana was still a kid. Maria wasn't gonna lie — she did thought at first it was… quite questionable, for him to develop feelings for a kid that young when he was an adult. Morgana wasn't even twelve yet. Maria may have become a whore around that age, but she was aware it wasn't a normal situation at all. It was off. Wrong. Any other guy, and she would have definitely stepped in.

But Jacopo wasn't any other guy. She'd known him for years, had grown up with him like a brother. And while she suspiciously monitored him for a while and would've interfered if he'd done anything out of place, she'd quickly noticed he was aware his feelings were inappropriate to say the least, and that he definitely wouldn't try to actively pursue Morgana while she was at that age. She knew Jacopo wasn't the kind of creep who would try to have sex or even any kind of romantic relationships with a child. She had known creeps like that. Had fucked some of them. Jacopo was many things, but a creep he wasn't. She would never have stayed his friend that long otherwise — she had standards, despite the appearances, and children-fuckers weren't among them.

Maria might not have a lot of trust in men in general, but Jacopo was one of the few exceptions. Maybe the only exception. And so far, she had been right — dude clearly knew how to stay away from Morgana and knew her boundaries, and crossing them wouldn't even come to his mind.

"I understand the situation is… delicate, okay?" Maria concluded. "But, like, you can't deny the…" She waved her hands in front of her. "Feelings are there."

Jacopo groaned, then put his face in his hands, sighing deeply.

"I thought—" He started, his voice low. "At first, I thought I was just… overthinking stuffs. That, like, it would go away. If I waited long enough."

"But it didn't go away."

"No, it didn't."

He heaved another sigh, and took a sip of his drink. "But whatever it is, it doesn't matter either way. If those feelings don't go away, then I decided I will tell her once she's… older. That wouldn't be right, at the moment."

Maria hummed pensively. Certainly, that sounded like the most reasonable and sane decision. She doubted a barely-twelve-year-old girl would be very receptive to a sudden love confession from an adult man and could handle something like that, especially not a girl like Morgana who had a lot of other issues. So she understood Jacopo's decision, but at the same time… she thought that maybe having someone — someone Morgana knew and who she particularly cared about — declare he was in love with her, that she has this special in someone's heart, would do her a lot of good. This whole thing could go very wrong or very right depending on many things, and she wasn't sure in this instant what was the right choice.

"I dunno if it's really the best choice for Morgana," Maria finally admitted. "But I suppose that for now it's better to wait."

Jacopo eyed her carefully.

"You better not say a word to anyone about this, get it?"

Maria chuckled. "I won't, I won't! Though I think a lot of people already suspect something. The girls at the brothel, at least. Gratien too maybe. Morgana and Ceren are honestly the only too dense ones who couldn't suspect anything."

Jacopo stared at her wide-eyed and mouth agape, and then he uttered an "Ugh," and let his head fall onto the wooden table, which got Maria to chuckle even harder. This also made her think of Ceren, though — she felt a bit bad for the girl if Jacopo truly had feelings for Morgana. But, then again, lately she'd started to suspect that maybe the guy Ceren had an interest in wasn't Jacopo. She didn't have any proof of that, but some things just didn't add up in her mind and her intuition was telling her this. Maria might have never been in love before and had zero interest in romance, but it didn't mean she knew nothing about it and couldn't tell the signs when people were interested that way in others, and Ceren just didn't present them.

She hoped the man she truly crushed on was at least less hopeless than her old friend, because Ceren may be annoying as hell sometimes, she still was a sweetheart who deserved a good guy.

"Still, it really is something, huh," she suddenly blurted out. "I've always thought the two of us were going to grew old while staying single all our lives. I mean, you never had any interest in women, despite hanging out all the time in a freaking brothel. So to think the person you'd end up falling for would be Morgana, of all people…"

"Just because I have— " He winced. "Feelings… for her doesn't mean I won't die single. I mean, I'm pretty sure she hates my guts. And she probably still will even in a few years down the line."

Maria chuckled. "True."

Although, if she was being honest, she actually didn't agree much with this. Morgana may spent her time fighting and belittling Jacopo, he was still the person she liked and felt the most comfortable with around. Now, whether or not she was actually in love with him, that she couldn't tell.

"So for now we're still stuck to being single losers for the rest of our days," Jacopo said.

"Hey, excuse you. I'm not a loser. I'm quite happy being single. You're the single loser and I'm the single winner."

He rolled his eyes. "Either way we're still single."

"Hmm, well," Maria contended in a pensive tone. "I've still had some adventures myself, but not sure if that counts."

"What do you mean? I thought you had absolutely no interest in romance."

"I don't," Maria agreed. "Never had feelings for anyone. But I've still had my fun here and there. Remember the pretty girl who worked for us a few months and quitted about two years ago? The two of us sort of had a thing going on for a while."

"With another girl?" Jacopo repeated, his eyes narrowed. Maria could see he had troubles wrapping his mind around it at first, but then he just sighed and shrugged, as if to say it didn't matter. "First time I've heard about it."

"Yeah, I tried to keep it discreet. But well, I wasn't in love with her, and it was a fun experience, but not my thing. Though it's not the first this happened either."

"I feel like I've just heard about a whole new side of yours I never knew about," Jacopo admitted.

Yeah, well, I have my secrets too, Maria almost replied, but decided to keep quiet. To be honest, the reason why she never mentioned this to Jacopo was just because she never judged it to be all that important.

"Either way, I greatly prefer to be alone. At least we're free, no responsibility, no ties. Ain't that the best?" She leaned on the table, lifted her glass and grinned at her friend. "Let's celebrate being single for as long as we can, my dude!"

Jacopo quirked an amused eyebrow at her and returned her grin, before clinking his glass with hers.

---

The carriage was rolling rhythmically on the afternoon road.

Maria couldn't help but lean on the wooden edge, looking at the scrolling landscape, her eyes sometimes slipping towards the horses that leaded their transportation.

Her mother was sat in front of her in silence, long blond hair floating in the wind. When she looked at her, she smiled.

Her father was at the front, taking care of the horses, so she couldn't see him from where she was.

Trees and bushes and rocks streamed in front of her eyes without she had the time to make out their details, until she heard a strong, dull sound.

All of a sudden, the horses shrieked, her vision blurred and she almost couldn't see anything at all.

Her head was hurting. Her legs and arms, too.

Red, red, red flowed in front of her eyes, on the ground.

In the corner of her eyes, she could see her mother's blond hair and blue dress sprawled a little afar from her, but her body seemed to be at a wrong angle, and her breathing was so painfully heavy and irregular.

Until it stopped altogether.

And just blackness filled her vision.

---

Maria couldn't breath.

Her stomach was twisted with fear and anger and despair, and her hands covered in blood, and she was frozen in place, unable to think, to do anything.

Her vision was blurry, her mind foggy. Memories scrambled around in her brain — of a surly man pinning her down on the ground, of a carriage toppling over and crashing on the ground.

In front of her was the rumbles of the brothel — of what had been, should be, her home — and everything was destroyed and wrecked and bloodied.

Red, red, red flowed in front of her eyes, on the ground—

She shook her head brusquely, trying to gather herself — she had to gather herself, she had to be strong, but the trembling in her hands wouldn't stop, and she even struggled to stand and walk among the rumbles and the corpses, trying to find something — anything she could grab onto.

Even now, she was still in denial about what had just happened, barely could understand it.

There had been Morgana's birthday party, laughters and teasing and jabs about Jacopo's feelings, and suddenly everything went crumbling down by a piercing scream. She had instantly felt in her guts that something very wrong was going to happen, but maybe out of fear she preferred to deny it and simply guess that it was some clients acting out. However Jacopo hadn't gone along with her idea, and when he ordered her to go in their safe hidden place with the other girls, she couldn't bring herself to fight him. So she'd grabbed a still sleepy Ceren by the arm and quickly headed towards their hideout with Lili, Emma and the other five women who had the day off.

"Boss…? What's going on…?" Ceren had grumbled in the darkness of the hideout, rubbing at her eyes, and Maria instantly whispered a dry "Shhh!" while tightly grabbing her hand.

Maybe Ceren felt how anxious she was, because she uncharacteristically respected her order and shut her mouth. The other women were just as uneasy as her, and Maria could feel Lili's body pressed against hers whenever sounds too loud or screams reached their ears. With her free hand, Maria took a hold of one of her knives in her pockets — she always would keep one on her at all times, just in case — and tried to calm down her beating heart and tell herself it was no big deal. That Jacopo would reappear within a minute or two with his dumb grin and declares that it truly was nothing after all, and that he had freaked unnecessarily.

Unfortunately, neither God or fate heard her silent prayers, and within a few minutes it wasn't Jacopo who opened the hideout trap, but a tall, big man she didn't know. An ugly smirk spread on his face, and then he declared in a sturdy voice:

"Found the girls! They're here! Looks like we weren't lied to, after all."

And Maria didn't even get the time to gasp that a bunch of other men, all armed, jumped on them, grabbing their arms brusquely with wide palms and forcing them out of the hideout. She heard Lili scream, saw the other girls try to struggle themselves out of the men's grasps, but when sharp swords and daggers found their way under their necks with insults and threats, none of them had any other way but to comply.

"Boss…!" She heard a plaintive shriek as Ceren's hand slipped away from her own, and just had the time to turn her head to see the younger girl stares at her with wide, shining turquoise eyes as she was dragged away. "Boss, help—"

But then one of the man put a hand on her mouth and disappeared with her, and Maria felt herself burning with rage. She had to watch these bastards take away her friends — watch Ceren getting kidnapped for the third goddamn time in her life — and could do nothing about it. She couldn't stand it. She refused to let herself be this powerless again — to watch and do nothing as the carriage crashed, to watch and do nothing as that man pinned her down, to watch and do nothing as her life was stolen away.

And so she hurled.

"Let her go!" Her shout detonated as she snatched her arm away from the man holding it, and tightened her grip on her knife. "Let all of them go! You— Don't you dare to touch them with your dirty hands!"

She planted the knife in the shoulder of the man holding Lili who instantly let her go while screaming in pain, and then slashed it at another one trying to grab her again. She slashed and punched and struggled to the point where she barely could distinguish the faces of her assailants and felt her own skin getting teared apart by their blades, but honestly she didn't care. She just wanted to drive them away, protect her girls and make them leave her home.

However her desperate fight took an abrupt stop when a loud voice resonated and made all the other men froze.

"That's enough! We can't take any more girls!"

"But there's still some of them left!"

"Let them be! We need to go, now!"

The men grumbled with discontentment for a bit, before quickly starting to retreat, and Maria felt herself seething with fury. Did they honestly thought they could came here, kill and stole away her family, and then go off as if nothing happened? She refused to let them go like that, let them got away with what they had done. But as she was about to launch onto the closest man, Lili jumped on her and pulled on her arm. Her friend was shaking from head to toes and looking at her with eyes full of tears, silently begging her to not do anything. Maria hesitated and her legs froze, switching her gaze between Lili and their assailants. No matter the amount of rage she possessed, she knew she didn't have a chance against these armed men. And she knew it was already a miracle they'd let them go like that. But even so, this was…

Before she had the time to say or do anything though, the burglars had already left, and when their footsteps disappeared in the distance, Lili let herself fell on Maria's chest and cried her heart out. Feeling wretched, she could do nothing but held the other woman tight in her arms, all while hearing the other two survivors whimpering softly behind her.

She could not bring herself to move for quite some time — gently patting Lili's back, her head a mess, filled with screams and Ceren's confused face and her girls getting snatched away from her. It wasn't until Lili finally calmed down that Maria stood up on wobbly legs.

"What are you doing?" Lili whimpered, her voice cracking, and Maria felt bad to leave her alone in such a state… but she had to.

"I— I'll come back, but, I have to— I have to find Jacopo and the others."

And she turned her back, because she knew that if she saw Lili's pleading face she wouldn't be able to leave. Her legs were still trembling awfully — her whole body was, honestly — and she had to lean on the walls to support her weight. The now empty, silent halls of the brothel seemed so eerie. She felt as if she was entering some foreign, unfamiliar place, and not the home she had lived in for about ten years now. Her brain was screaming at her to turn away, to not look at the damage — but she had to see it for herself. She had to find Jacopo, and Morgana (God, Morgana, she brusquely remembered. She had said she had to go to the bathroom before all this, but where was she now?), and all the others — even if, deep down, she was already bracing herself for the worse. She was perfectly aware of what they would've done to people others than the women they could sell, and this thought made her stomach twist, her throat dry and her eyes sting.

The first things she saw upon entering the main room were the wrecked, colorful curtains she and the girls had spent so much time working on, now only floating pitifully in shambles. But the curtains — the curtains she didn't care about. What her eyes stuck on and refused to let go was the corpses scattered around the place, unmoving, covered in blood. Mostly men, from what she could see, but she also distinguished a few rare women laying around — maybe because they had tried to put a fight. Maria couldn't say if they were more or less lucky than the ones who had been kidnapped. Her brain seemed unable to truly register the miserable spectacle that was in front of her eyes, and it felt as if all her emotions had been frozen — that is, until she spotted thick, curly black hair in a corner. Maria would recognize its owner anywhere, because she'd always thought she had the prettiest hair of all the women around here — but when she would tell her that, she just laughed modestly and tell her she was exaggerating.

"Iris," she muttered her name on her lips, as if she was hoping this would wake her up — but the truth was that she already knew it wouldn't.

Her body was twisted in an unnatural way in a poodle of blood, her eyes wide open in horror, and the mangled corpse of Charlotte from a few years earlier popped up in her mind. There was no way she was still alive.

Iris had been one of the oldest prostitutes here — had been there even before Maria — and she'd been the one who welcomed the girl here when she was just a child and agreed to give her a job. If it hadn't been for Iris, Maria would probably just be one of those street kids who died in a ditch and that people forgot about.

Her lips trembled and tears welled up in her eyes despite her best efforts, and she had to bit the inside of her cheeks to prevent herself from falling on her knees and sobbing. The enormity and awfulness of what had just happened hadn't really caught up to her yet, she couldn't realize what all those corpses and rambles and Iris's body laying in blood right now, and yet she already felt overwhelmed. She felt like she was that ten years old trapped at this hellish orphanage all over again with the only wish to escape and find another life, except that this was her other life that had just been utterly destroyed in the span of a few dozen of minutes, and she just couldn't register it. With her breath caught in her throat and a nausea climbing in her throat, she turned away, unable to stand looking at an inanimate gray, cold version of Iris, and started to ran out of the brothel.

She felt the need to throw up and curl up on herself and just get away from here — and she would have if it hadn't been for her catching a glimpse of a body in the corner of her eyes. She probably wouldn't have stopped though if she had not spotted the familiar wavy brown hair and tan skin. At first, her heart stopped beating when she noticed the large pool of blood underneath him similarly to Iris', and she could feel her face becoming livid upon imagining he had suffered the same fate as her… but then she suddenly noticed a weak, feeble spasm of his chest. A breathing. He was breathing, she realized. Which meant that despite the huge amount of blood, he was still alive.

"Jacopo!" She exclaimed and rushed towards him as hope filled her heat and kneeled at his side. "Jacopo! Jacopo, can you hear me?"

She took him by the shoulders to turn him around, and that was when she realized the huge wound that sprawling across his stomach and stained his clothes red. Jacopo wasn't dead — but he soon would be if she didn't do anything about it.

"Jacopo! Jacopo, s-stay with me, okay? It's all right— Ah, fuck, you better stay with me or I swear to God I'll kill your ghost myself!"

All while talking, she did her best to take some of her clothes to clean the wound and stop the bleeding with trembling hands. She cursed herself for having taken so long before leaving the hideout and inspecting the place.

(If Jacopo died because she didn't notice him bleeding out to death sooner, she would never forgive herself.)

Maria may have some experience with treating injuries, but she was no doctor, and the idea that the slightest missteps could cost the man in her hands his life only added to her panic.

Somehow, as her hands were full of his blood, it only hit her now that she'd never truly thought about the probability of Jacopo dying before.

She'd often worried about him whenever he would come back at the brothel covered in wounds and vaguely joked in bad taste about it more than once, but she never actually seriously considered it. And she realized that now that she was directly confronted with this probability, the idea actually gripped her at the throat and terrified her.

Jacopo has been such a constant and crucial part of her life ever since she met him, so much that she could barely imagine what it would be like without him in it.

What would she do if she were to lose him?

She was way too afraid to even think about this possibility.

"Come on," she mutters softly, leaning onto Jacopo's body. "You can't do that to me… You— just can't."

Her trembling hands pressed yet against his wound, but except for his painful gasps there were no other responses from him. Slowly, Maria passed a bloody hand on his forehead, brushing away the strands of wavy hair, and she grasped his shirt before burying her face into his chest as she felt the tears prickling at her eyelashes.

"Don't leave me," she whispered shakily. "If you die here and leave me all alone after everything… I'll never forgive you."

She could still hear the slight thumping in his chest, albeit barely, and could only pray for it to be strong enough to keep beating. She didn't know how much time she spent kneeled there on the ground, trying to minimize the damage as much as she could and mop up all the blood, but it felt like an eternity until Lili got her out of her trance by putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her gray eyes were still red and puffy and her face looked as white as a ghost, but she at least seemed more put together than earlier, while the same couldn't be said of Maria.

Once Jacopo's bleeding stopped and he seemed stable enough, they both did their best to transport him in the backroom of the brothel and put him on an actual mattress, before actually starting to bandage the wound properly. The other two women stood there in a corner in silence, too shaken to be able to do much of anything, and Maria couldn't blame them.

Time seemed to vanish. Even after she finished bandaging up Jacopo, Maria stayed by his side, holding his hand and waiting. He may still be breathing, but his condition still seemed very precarious, and Maria couldn't help but feel his heart could stop beating at any moment now. He was extremely agitated, wriggling in every sense, his entire body as hot as a grill and sweating heavily. It wasn't until about an hour later when he suddenly opened his eyes and straightened up that Maria let herself relax and that tears instantly flew out of her eyes. Throwing all of her pride aside, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, while Jacopo just froze, confused.

"I swear to God… I was sure I had lost you…"

"Maria… Are you… crying…?"

"You got a problem with that? Asshole!"

She tried to punch his shoulder, but it was barely a hit at all because of how weak she was, and she must've looked quite miserable still sobbing in his neck.

"I'm sorry…"

After a while, Jacopo finally returned her hug awkwardly, gently rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her — and Maria wished she could just stay here in her friend's arms and forget everything that had just happened. But of course, that was not possible. The circumstances they were in seemed to hit Jacopo once again, and he instantly moved away from Maria and stood up.

Maria wanted him to stay in bed, but she couldn't bring herself to actually stop him, as she had been in the same situation a little while ago. So she just watched him from afar as he observed the state the brothel was in and slowly broke down upon realizing their vanishing friends and Morgana's absence. Maria wanted to comfort him, say something — but no words came. So she just hovered behind him awkwardly as he fell on his knees screaming.

She didn't know how much time passed as she just watched Jacopo without being able to do anything, but it wasn't until Gratien came stumbling here with some other guys from the peacekeepers that she felt herself reconnect with reality again. They stared around with stunned looks, as if they couldn't believe their own eyes.

"I've heard 'bout some mayhem happenin' 'ere," Gratien finally uttered. "But… What the fuck?"

Maria sighed, wrapping her arms around herself, and threw a glance at Jacopo. He had calmed down now, but he was still on his knees, unmoving, as if he was just a puppet whose strings had been cut off. So she supposed she had to be the one to explain the recent events. Which she did. Gratien and the men listened quietly to the brief summary of what had happened, and then the blond man's face morphed into a virulent expression of anger. He punched thoroughly into one of the walls, shouting a string of insults and slurs, and Maria honestly got scared he was going to damage the brothel even more than it already was.

She was a little surprised though, to be honest. Even if he did hang around here quite often, she didn't think Gratien had taken this much of a liking to the brothel, but maybe she just hadn't been paying attention. She usually had quite some distaste for the man, but in this instant she felt an odd form of warmth and gratitude towards him for expressing such an overt anger for her and the girls.

"It's bullshit!" He roared. "We can't let these guys get away with this! We need t' track 'em down right away! Hey, kid, ya hear me?"

But Jacopo didn't seem to hear him. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice his presence at all. His eyes were vacant, and he looked as if he wasn't really present in the room anymore, which sent chills down Maria's back. It had been a while since she had seen such an expression on him — at least since they were kids. Maria had learned that when this happened, it was better to not brusque him at the risk of making things worse, but Gratien didn't know Jacopo like she did and his lack of response only aggravated his anger.

"Are ya gonna move in the end?" He shouted while grabbing Jacopo by the collar. "Hey, are ya just gonna sat 'ere an' do nothin' after what happened?"

When she noticed that Gratien looked like he was about to punch him, Maria finally interfered and grabbed his massive arms with all her strength.

"Stop that!" She screamed. "That's not the time for this…!"

"What? Are ya tellin' me ya good with this?" He snapped back violently at her. "Yer just gonna abandon yer girls?"

Maria bit down her lip and glared at him. She hoped he couldn't see she was doing all she could to not cry yet again.

"How dare you?" She spat out. "O-Of course I am not good! But it's— it's not the time to argue! What do you even intend to do, anyway? How do you want to track them down? Th-That's just not possible!"

Gratien returned her glare harshly. He looked like wanted to say more to her, but instead he swallowed back his words before clicking his tongue in his mouth. Finally, he let go of Jacopo and turned around.

"Do whatever the fuck you want," he mumbled, before storming out of the brothel.

Maria sighed once again, her body shaking. She eyed Jacopo who was still unresponsive, caught sight of the peacekeeper guys and Lili and the survivor girls.

Then she let herself fall on her knees next to Jacopo and bury her face in her hands, as if doing so would somehow manage to wake her up from this nightmare.

It didn't.

---

She had to almost drag Jacopo out of the brothel until his apartment after Gratien left. With his severe stab wound and his lethargic shocked state it was quite the struggle, but thankfully she received help from Lili. After what had happened, none of the girls felt like spending the night at the brothel — it felt too painful, too unsafe — so Lili and the others decided to sleep at some of their clients' while Maria choose to stay with Jacopo. They still hadn't decided what to do with the brothel. Maria wasn't sure if they would be able to renovate it, or if it'd be better to take a new emplacement altogether. But she didn't want to think about this just yet.

She let Jacopo sleep on his bed while she arranged herself a made-up mattress on the floor. Maria had been at Jacopo's apartment quite a few times over the years, and had even slept here on a few occasions, yet when she lay there on the ground and stared at the ceiling, it felt off and unfamiliar. Uncomfortable. Jacopo's unusual solemn silence and lack of snark made things even worse. But just hearing his regular breathing, his presence next to her and the knowledge that he was still alive was enough to lull her into sleep.

She started to clean up the mess at the brothel with Lili and the others as soon as dawn showed up. Maria supposed doing so could've waited a bit, but she especially didn't want to leave the corpses to rot there. A few of their regular clients showed up to help at Lili's request, and even some of Jacopo's friends from the pub.

Taking care of the men's bodies scattered around was hard enough — she had no emotional attachment to them, but she still was used to see some of these faces regularly, and those were human corpses (Maria suddenly felt a new surge of respect for Morgana who used to deal with these on a regular basis and wondered how she did it) — but the most painful part came when she had to take care of the women's bodies.

There were only a few around as most of them had been kidnapped, however every time she lay her eyes on the inert corpses of her friends it felt like her heart was being teared apart. And it was especially bad when it came to Iris' body. She stayed sat next to her side for a long time before bringing herself to even just touch her — so much that some of the men around asked her if she wanted them to take care of it, but she refused. She wanted to do this herself — owned it to her.

So she gently brushed aside some black locks out of Iris' face, ignored the way her stomach turned at the sight of the corpse and bit back her tears, then finally took the body in her arms. Iris had always been a pretty light woman, but for some reason she felt particularly heavy right now.

At first, they'd thought of just getting rid of the bodies in some deserted back alleys as it was often custom in the slums — but then Maria suddenly remembered Morgana's graveyard. It was small and makeshift and it would take them quite some time to bury all these corpses, but Maria just couldn't bring herself to dump them like vulgar trash — she couldn't do that to her girls, to Iris. The men helping them out grumbled a bit about this being too much work, but the brothel survivors instantly backed up Maria's decision so in the end it was quickly decided. It was the first time Maria ever did something like that, and found out that burying bodies was a lot of work — they had only managed to take care of half of them when the sun started to set down. Morgana haunted Maria's thoughts during the entire process — she had taken special care to search for the small girl's body among the rumbles without being able to find any traces of it anywhere, no matter how hard she looked. She didn't know if she felt better or worse for that.

Then her thoughts went back to the women who had been kidnapped, and she hoped that them at least would be able to stay alive and escape. She wished Ophélie was still here, because for all the fight they had, she still had been the most reliable person around here and she would've been so valuable in this situation.

But Maria knew that no amount of hoping and wishing could be of any help to these women now.

"That was a good choice," Lili told her suddenly on their way home. "I'm sure… Iris and the others are happy to be buried there…"

I think they'd be happier to be still alive, is what Maria almost snapped back to her dryly, but she knew Lili felt just as bad as her and only tried to keep their spirits up. So instead she just replied a vague "Yeah," without being able to look at her friend in the eyes.

She heard Lili sigh, and after a long, awkward pause, the other woman added in a small voice: "I… Maria, I don't think I'll be able to keep working here…"

Maria blinked at her, and stopped walking. "What? Well… I mean, I think it'll be better to find a new place altogether, yeah."

"No, what I mean is…" Lili bit her lip. "I think I'll find another brothel. One of my clients knows about a place not too far from here, and… I've been thinking about it since yesterday, and I think I'd… I'd like to go work there."

Maria looked at her with shocked eyes first, and then a look of understanding crossed her face.

"I see," she simply said.

"I'm sorry… I-I don't want to leave you alone, and it's not like that, I just—"

"No, it's cool. I get it."

And then nothing else was exchanged between them. Maria understood, truly. She understood not being able to work there after what happened.

There was a part of her who actually felt a bit jealous of Lili, in this instant — because she truly, truly wished she, too, could just escape this place, forget everything and leave it behind.

When she finally got home, she felt like she had been completely drained of her strength and energy. She only wanted to threw herself onto her made-up bed and sleep for days and days — and maybe even never wake up again.

But she couldn't do that, obviously — she couldn't escape and run away like Lili, and she had to stay grounded in reality no matter how much she couldn't stand it.

"I'm home," she said weakly without expecting any answers, before putting a bag on the table. "I managed to grab some vegetables on the way. They don't look very fresh, but we'll have to do with it."

She glanced in the direction of Jacopo where he was still laying, but he didn't even twitch. Well, at least Maria was glad he was still in bed and not trying to run around everywhere yet. She quietly got the vegetables out of the bag and started to make the meal.

"Teo and the others came to give us a hand. We buried the corpses in Morgana's graveyard… I thought this was… the best option." She hesitated a little, before adding in a smaller voice: "I… I still wasn't able to find any traces of Morgana, though."

Still, no reaction. Maria sighed.

"I dunno what to make of the brothel. We started to clean things up a bit but, um, well, it's in a really bad state… It'll be hard to find a new place though, so I'm not sure. I'll have to consult with the girls, of course, but—"

"Maria."

His voice was calm, but something sharp in it made her stop. An uneasy feeling overwhelmed her, and she felt her stomach turn into knots and her breath getting caught up in her throat. She couldn't bring herself to turn around to face him.

"What… would you think if I were to become the lord?"

And at this, she felt her heart stop beating altogether. Her hand trembled around the knife, and she had to put it back on the table, before finally turning around, and laughing. She laughed — because she had honesty no idea how else she should reply to this. This had to be a joke.

"Wh-What the fuck are you talking about, Jacopo? Did you hit your stupid head or something?"

She cackled yet again, a little too loudly, and at this moment Jacopo turned his head towards her. The moment their eyes met, Maria felt her blood drain from her face, because then she instantly knew. She knew he wasn't joking — that he was dead serious. And he looked at her with an odd shine in his eyes, as if he was… consulting her. Expecting her to advise him. As if he was searching her consent for the absurd declaration he had just made.

(Since when did Jacopo ever consult her for anything, though?)

"D-Don't be fucking ridiculous," she finally let out. "There's no way you could become a lord."

"But what if I could?"

"You can't!"

She had screamed a little too emotionally, too high-pitched, and from the way Jacopo frowned slightly at her, he had noticed that too. She coughed a little, trying to compose herself, and then turned around to refocus on her vegetables.

"You're just— I mean, you can't just become a lord like that. You weren't raised to rule, and that's not something innate. Plus, there's no way some poor rat dwellers like you and I could ever get anywhere near that position. It's just… impossible."

She grabbed the knife, then started to cut the vegetables yet again. Her hand was still trembling, though.

"Yeah," she whispered, but this time it was more to herself than anyone else. "That's just impossible."

When she finished to prepare dinner, they both ate in silence and didn't exchange a single word for the rest of the evening.

---

It took in total three days for Jacopo to get out of bed and start walking again. To be honest, he was far from having recovered, and Maria had argued with him pretty harshly for him to still stay bedded. But as usual, Jacopo had payed her no mind and had stubbornly headed out on his own. Well, she supposed that if he could walk on his own without looking like he was going to pass out any seconds, he would be fine. However, for as much as he looked better physically, it was obvious the whole incident had taken a huge toll on him.

His face looked like a corpse's, his eyes were vacant, and there were a lot of times where Maria just felt like he was completely disconnected with his surrounding. As if he wasn't really here anymore. He hadn't tried to talk to Gratien or to any of his pub buddies, or tried to go at the pub at all, for that matter. He spent his days helping her and the girls taking care of the mess at the brothel, and then he would wander like a phantom looking for Morgana.

As Maria had expected, there were no traces at all of the girl's corpse anywhere in the brothel, even after they had cleaned up everything, which meant the likeliest option was that she had been kidnapped with the others. Or, that she'd been killed and her body had been disposed of elsewhere. Maria didn't know what to expect, but as harsh it might've sounded, it was better to just expect she was dead. It wasn't like she actually wanted her to be dead, of course — but it was better to just expect the worse than getting your hopes up for nothing. Maria perfectly knew which would hurt the most.

"You need to stop," she had told Jacopo after about a week.

He looked up at her with confused eyes. "Stop?"

Maria looked away awkwardly and bit her lip. "About Morgana," she said softly. "You need to… stop, looking for her like that."

When the words got out of her lips, she could see a vague annoyance flicker in his eyes.

"We still haven't found her body, right?" He replied. "Then that must mean there's a chance she's still alive. If she's still alive, then—"

"Then what? You're going to spend the rest of your life looking for a girl who could literally be anywhere in the country by now?"

Jacopo glared resentfully at her. "Well, yeah, maybe I will," he replied dryly, and Maria sighed sadly.

She didn't know why she bothered to try to talk him out of it, because she pertinently knew he wouldn't listen. Jacopo never listened to her. But then again, it seemed that she would always do stupid, nonsensical things when it came to him.

"Jacopo, I want to get her back as much as you do, but… You can't keep doing this. You know as well as me that it's more likely that she's—"

"I'm going to go to the west now. That's the one place where I haven't searched yet."

"Jacopo—"

"Thanks for your concern, Maria. But I'm fine. I'll see you later."

And without another word, he turned around and started to walk away. Maria felt the need to call after him, but no words actually got out of her mouth, so she just watched him disappear in silence. Instead, she simply decided to get back to his home — well, which was their home at the moment — and maybe get herself drunk to sleep because it seemed like the only thing bringing her happiness lately.

However, when she arrived at the building, she spotted a familiar silhouetted hanging around, who waved his hand upon seeing her.

"Hey, long time no see," Gratien said casually.

"It's been like five days," Maria replied dryly. She really wasn't in the mood to deal with this guy right now.

"Er, yeah. So, is Jacopo's 'ere o' what?"

"No, he's not."

Gratien heaved a disgruntled sigh and scratched the back of his head in an annoyed way.

"Does he intends t' run away an' avoid me an' the guys for a long time like that again?"

"Don't ask me. Maybe he finally got tired of hanging out with you losers? Honestly, that'd be an improvement, as far as I'm concerned. At least now you'll stop trying to drag him into your stupid revolution fantasies."

Gratien twitched a little at the thinly veiled insult and provocation, but for once he didn't actually took the bait and just glared silently at Maria. Then he crossed his arms and grunted disapprovingly.

"Y'know," he started. "Th' more I've been thinkin' 'bout that brothel raid, an' the less it makes sense."

Maria frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Doesn't make much sense for a bunch of thieves t' rob a poor brothel in the slums, yeah? An' on top of that, from I've heard, t'was an organized attack. No way such a thin' could've happen without our gang hearin' 'bout it."

Maria's face darkened and she pressed her lips into a tight line. The truth was, she'd been thinking the same thing, too. Something about this whole attack just seemed off, and she didn't like that at all. She was surprised Gratien had thought the same thing, though. She'd always pinned him as being not very sharp, but maybe he could actually use his head when needed to.

"I agree," she conceded. "But what's your point?"

"I'm sayin' that this felt like some kinda warnin'. Me an' the boys've been pocked 'ere an' there at the lord since the past three years… an' somethin' tell he didn't take it well."

"Are you telling the lord is behind this?"

"Who else? The point's that this asshole ain't gonna leave us alone. That raid? Just the beginnin'. If we don't do anythin' against him, he's gonna just wipe us out before we can even see it!"

Maria snorted, then shook her head incredulously. "Oh, so that's what it's all about again! Just your stupid delusions of revolutions and whatnot! For starter, if what you say is true, then maybe you shouldn't have started to 'pock' at the lord to start with! Maybe if you hadn't, then my girls would still be safe and the brothel still intact!"

And this time she didn't just glared at him with anger, but with active resentment and hatred. Because if Gratien was right, that meant him and all those stupid guys were directly responsible for getting her home and family destroyed, and it wasn't something she would ever forgive.

"Yer always like that, huh," he suddenly blurted out.

"What?"

"Ya always play tough, but whenever ya actually need t' take actions, ya just ran away with yer tail between yer legs."

Maria felt as if someone had actually punched her in the stomach. She gasped and widened her eyes, before rage overwhelm her.

"What the fuck?" She seethed. "I'm simply being realistic, unlike you! Do forgive me for not indulging in your suicidal fantasies!"

Gratien only stared down at her, his expression unreadable. It was as if he was looking at a pitiful insect. Maria hated that — and she would've absolutely punched him and kicked him in the balls if he hadn't suddenly turned around without a word before walking away.

"I don't care what you think of me," Maria added suddenly, shouting at his back. "But don't you dare to bring Jacopo into your crappy plans! You hear me? If anything happens to him because of that, I'll fucking smash your head!"

But Gratien didn't reply anything, and as soon as he disappeared at the corner of the street, Maria felt her vivid anger being replaced by fear.

Because she knew, deep down, that no matter how much she could put the blame on Gratien, or on the other guys of the gang, that it wouldn't be what would drag Jacopo down to Hell in the end.

---

Her chest felt as if it was about to burst open. She was running at full speed in the street, her stomach tight, her throat dry and her mind full of conflicting emotions. Fear and frustration and anger all boiled down inside her without her brain actually being able to make sense of any of them.

Her course took a stop when she managed to reach the alley of Jacopo's apartment, and her heart froze upon seeing the man himself standing there, as he seemed to have just exited his home. She couldn't read his expression from where she stood, but actually seeing him after what she had just heard just accentuated her mishmash of emotions.

"J-Jacopo!" She screamed out, trying her best to keep her voice steady and failing.

The man turned his head towards her, but no expression showed on his face. He didn't seem surprised to see her. In fact, it was as if he had been expecting this. Maria swallowed hard, and stepped towards him with trembling legs.

"What does that mean?" She shouted again, her voice shaking with emotion and betrayal.

Maybe that might have sounded exaggerated, but that was honestly how she felt. Betrayed.

But Jacopo said nothing. He just stared at her emotionlessly, as if he could see right through her — as if she wasn't even here. The same black, empty eyes he had looked at her with since the raid.

Maria couldn't stand it.

"Jacopo! Fucking answer me, dammit!"

Maria had to gather all of her strengths to not punch him or kick him or doing something — something that would elicit an emotion other than a blank stare out of him.

She breathed in deeply. She had to calm down. She knew she had to calm down, but her anger was the only way to subside the deep, deep hurt that was rearing an ugly head in her heart.

"I— I heard," she finally managed to spat out in a calmer tone. "I heard— about what you and the guys are planning to do."

Once again, Jacopo just stared at her, his face betraying nothing. But after a few seconds, he looked away, and simply uttered, "I see."

Maria felt her breath get stuck in her throat.

"Haven't you had enough danger for one life?" She said again, and her voice was unexpectedly soft, surprising even herself. "This— This whole thing is completely stupid! Gratien and the other morons really got you with all their stupid talks! There's no way it'll work!"

She got closer to him once more, stopping just a few centimeters away from him.

"C'mon, forget about all this revolution stuff. We can build up a new brothel and just stay low for the rest of our days. Does that really sound so bad?"

She was begging now, and her voice sounded so needy and fragile and pitiful, and usually she would have rather killed herself that sound like this. But this wasn't an 'usual' situation. Right now, her best friend — her only friend left — was about to get himself killed, leave her all alone behind for a ridiculous failing plan, and she couldn't care less about any pride an old whore like her can have.

"Jaco— Jacopo, you—"

Just looked up at him, looked into his dark brown eyes, searching for something — anything. A sign that he was listening to her. Considering her words. Considering her.

But there was nothing.

Just a blank, empty stare.

A stare that made her lose her mind.

"Th-This makes no sense!" She hurled, and this time she didn't even try to contain her anger. She just let it all out. She grabbed his shirt and shook him. "This is just a suicide mission, you realize that, right? You guys are just going to get yourselves killed! Is that what you want?"

And as soon as the words got out of her mouth, she felt as if a brick had hit her. Her eyes widened, and her mouth stood agape.

"That… isn't what you want… right?"

Just a stare. Again. At this point, Maria just wanted him to answer anything, no matter what it might be, really.

"Jacopo… Jacopo, answer me! Just fucking talk to me!"

"I am not going there to die, if that's what you're worried about," was finally the first thing he told her.

But that was far from being enough to Maria, and it just only added to her grievances. It just made it all worse, and in another wave of anger, she raised her arm and punched him, without any restraint. Jacopo stumbled a little under the hit, but he didn't try to retaliate or protect himself as she grabbed him by the collar once again.

"Don't fuck with me! It doesn't matter what your end goal with this bullshit is! Overthrowing the throne will not make you go back in time! It will not make the raid to never happen!"

"I know that—"

"I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish, but this— this will give you nothing! It won't resuscitate anyone! It won't give you back Morgana!"

"I know that!"

Finally, for the first time, something shined in his eyes. Morgana's name seemed to have reanimated him, and now he looked at her in annoyance, maybe even in anger. It was better than nothing, at least. She could deal with an angry and annoyed Jacopo — she had done so for most of her life. An empty, vacant Jacopo, however, was something she just couldn't stand.

"So what? God— Fucking what, Jacopo? Do you think you're the only one suffering, maybe? Do you think you're the only one who lost people you loved? These girls — I knew them much better than you! They were my friends too! And Morgana— I also cared about her! Stop acting like you're— you're—"

—like you're all alone.

Stop acting like I'm not here anymore. Like you can't rely on me.

Stop acting like I don't matter to you.

Because I do, don't I?

Don't I?

But all of these couldn't make it through, as instead her throat just tightened and she knew that if she tried to say anything more she would start crying.

Her trembling hands let go of his shirt slowly. Jacopo looked down at her, but the anger had disappeared from his eyes. There was something else, instead — but Maria couldn't really tell what it was.

"I'm going, no matter what," was the only thing he said.

And then, he turned around, and Maria panicked. She felt the urge to grab him — beg him, cry, yell, do anything to stop him from going. She felt that if she were to just let him go now, she would regret it until the rest of her days.

But her legs wouldn't move. Her whole body wouldn't move. And so the only thing she managed to let out was a quivering, desperate plea.

"You're the only friend I've got left, Jacopo."

For a very, brief second, this seemed to make him stop. He stopped, and slightly turned his head. Not enough to be able to see her. But enough to give her some consideration.

It was only for a moment, though.

"Sorry," was the only thing he said, before walking on again.

And Maria just watched him go.

Despite knowing she shouldn't. Despite knowing she should run after him and keep screaming at him — maybe even knock him out and lock him up somewhere.

She just watching him go because the truth was that maybe Gratien was right — she was too much of a coward to actually run after him and ask him why he wouldn't listen to her.

Because she was too afraid of hearing him say she truly meant so little to him.

That maybe she never really mattered all that much to him.

Not as much as he mattered to her.

And when his silhouette finally disappeared in the corner of the street, her legs broke out under her body, and she fell on her knees, as her eyes started to sting horribly and she couldn't breath.

"Please don't go … Don't leave me behind."

The voice inside her head begged, but this time it didn't sound like the little ponytailed girl from her childhood, but like her own.

---

She honestly thought that this would be the last time she was going to see him.

When she watched him from afar as he left the slums, accompanied with his group of merry idiots, she thought that this time, she really had lost him for sure.

But maybe she had already lost him before that. Maybe she had lost him along with Morgana all those weeks ago when the brothel was raided.

Pitifully, she cried again, that night. But she didn't tell anyone.

Not like there was anyone left to tell.

---

She entered inside the small graveyard in an unsteady step. The place was silent. Eerie.

Somehow, it felt wrong of her to be here. She'd come to Morgana's graveyard once or twice before, briefly, but most of the time she always did her best to stay away.

Firstly, because she didn't like cemeteries — she thought they were creepy as hell, and it just brought her back bad memories. Of a lost family she barely remembered. Of dead friends she used to laugh and smile and work with.

And secondly, because this had always been Morgana's sanctuary — where she seemed to be at peace and comfortable with herself. Staying here with her would feel like robbing her of the one place where she felt somewhat safe, so no one, Maria included, dared to do that.

The only exception being, of course, Jacopo. Which wasn't surprising — he was the closest to her out of all of them. The only one she truly allowed to venture into her closed off little world.

Sometimes, Maria wondered if maybe Morgana did have some feelings for Jacopo, after all. She had said before that it would be more likely for him to get brutally rejected if he ever confessed — but honestly, the alternative wouldn't have been odd at all. Jacopo had saved her life and cared for her like no one else had, and despite Morgana's reluctance, it was clear she had been pretty attached to him and that they had shared a strong bond. Though with that kid, it was always such a hard task to decipher what might go on in her head… Maybe Morgana herself didn't really know what she was feeling half of the time.

Now there was no way they could ever know the truth, anyway.

Maria heaved a deep sigh as she slowly walked towards Iris' grave. It was makeshift and a far cry from Morgana's punctilious work, but that was all she'd been able to make. She kneeled down in front of it, and dropped the few flowers on the surface — it had been hard to find some in winter, and she didn't know what were their names, but they looked pretty enough and she thought Iris would like them. Iris had always liked all flowers, not matter which kind it was.

Maria had never believed in God despite having partly been raised by nuns, and she didn't believe any more in spirits or in the afterlife, but… she still thought it was nice, in a way, to have a place to think about her lost friends. Jacopo would likely think it's stupid as he had always thought whenever the dead were concerned, but whatever, she needed this right now and this dumbass wasn't even here anymore so shut the fuck up, asshole.

The revolution had came to an end a week ago, and to her surprise, it had actually been successful. They did manage to overthrew Barnier and took over the manor. And then Jacopo had chosen to become the next ruler. Just thinking about it made Maria want to laugh and cry all at the same time, and it made her heart burst in a whole lot of undefined emotions.

She still couldn't really say how exactly she felt about this chain of events, but the one thing she knew was that she didn't like it. She could still vividly recall hearing about the new appointed lord and feel her face draining upon realizing who it was, and then things getting even worse with her conversation with Gratien later on. The guy had told him about how this had all been Jacopo's initiative when she pushed the blame on him, and how he was secretly some noble's son or some bullshit.

Maria could believe Jacopo had been the one to initiate the revolution — despite what she had said to Gratien, that was something she'd always known, deep down, and it did sound like something he would do — but the secretly-royalty thing, she didn't swallow. She didn't care Jacopo had some stupid ring that proved it or whatever, he was no nobility — he was one of them, and he will always be. Which was why becoming the freackin' lord was the most ridiculous plan her old friend had ever come up with yet. And the fucker didn't even told her a word about it — not even when she confronted him about it just before he went off. Just thinking about it made her seethe with rage, and she wanted to go to the lord's manor and punch his stupid dumb face and beat him up until she could drag him back.

"I swear, he's such a fuckin' idiot," she grumbled to Iris' grave. She kinda wished her friend was here to advice or comfort her, but of course the tomb just stayed silent. No gentle ghost to keep her company appeared. "I should just leave him alone up there and watch him crash from afar. That's what he deserves."

But as soon as she pronounced those words, she knew it was just a boldfaced lie. She could never bring herself to completely give up on Jacopo, of course — because the truth was that she was as much of a dumbass as him.

She turned around. From here, she could see some bit of the manor at the top of the city, overlooking the entire territory. She wondered what Jacopo must be doing at the moment. Some stupid lord paperwork, probably. It must be a goddamn mess up there, to rehabilitate everything Barnier had left behind on top of getting himself to become a proper ruler. He was struggling, she was sure of it — and he was struggling all by himself, all alone.

And Maria was angry and annoyed and wanted to punch him more than anything… but, well, despite herself, she was also worried. Jacopo was no lord — and who knows what could happen to him when he was alone locked up in that mansion without any allies? The thought was driving her crazy, and she couldn't leave it at that. She knew, however, that she couldn't just drag him back to the slums by herself. And as her mind was burning, an inane idea started to form.

If she couldn't drag him back, then… how about she went to his side?

That's ridiculous , the pragmatic, practical part of her brain screamed at her. You're a fucking dumb whore, what the hell do you think you could do to help a lord?

And true enough, as she was, she probably couldn't do much. But Jacopo was also an illiterate guy from the slums, wasn't he? And he still was sitting on the throne right. Well, for now at least. So, maybe… just maybe, she could try to improve herself and then give him a hand. Maybe she could try to pull some strings by asking the few rare well-off clients she had (she never understood why those guys came all the way to the slums when they could afford much more accessible prostitutes, but that didn't matter as long as she got their money), could make some economies to get some lessons here and there. That would be hard and expansive — she'd have to say good bye to her knives collections she loved to buy every once in a while — but maybe that could work. It wasn't like it would cost her much to try, anyway. And she'd feel better to actually try something than doing nothing while worrying sick in her own little corner of the town.

A joyless chuckle escaped her as she realized she was planning to do something as crazy as what she had criticized Jacopo for doing the last past years. Oh, how the tables had turned… But it wasn't like that idiot had left her a choice now.

He had went off and actually accomplished his ridiculous objective of 'becoming someone' and getting out of the slums. She wondered if he was satisfied now that he was finally living in a sumptuous mansion surrounded by riches.

But she couldn't just leave him all by himself. They had always been together, watching out for each other's backs when the chips were down, and she wouldn't stop now.

She couldn't stop now.

---

When she opened her eyes, she could only see an unfamiliar ceiling, from an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar house.

Her whole body felt numb, as if she had been sleeping for days — and when she realized her arms and face were covered in bandages, she realized she probably had. She heard a few muted voices getting agitated in front of her — saw a woman trying to smile reassuringly, saying something across to "oh it's great you're finally awake, honey," but her mind seemed frozen, and she couldn't really register what was going on. When finally some of the fog started to clear up, only one thing came up to her brain and left her mouth.

"Where are Mom and Dad?"

And at this, everyone's faces darkened and the silence took over the room, and somehow Maria understood instantly why even without being told.

She and her family had been in a carriage accident, and her parents had died, apparently. The woman explained all of that to her in a bad accent and bad grammar but somehow, even three days after the incident, the girl couldn't wrap her mind around it.

It was only when a man came to her and told her she couldn't stay here anymore and they were going to send her to an orphanage that things started to fell slowly in place.

Her family was dead. She would never see her dad and mom again. And she could never go back to her country or home ever again. She was stuck in this foreign land all by herself, forever.

She didn't give an ounce of interest to the orphanage's building, to the nuns, to the curious stares the other children gave her — none of them speaking her language. She ignored the little girl with the ponytail who tried to shyly talk to her.

And it wasn't until she was buried in the bed that night, late enough so the sleeping nameless kids around her wouldn't hear anything, that she let herself cry.

---

Days felt way too long and way too short all at once.

Weeks morphed into months and soon it had been almost two years since the revolution. Sometimes, she felt so out of it that she couldn't even tell what day of the week it was or what hour it was and she had to force herself to get her shit together. Having a new routine install itself without Jacopo's punctual visits, without Iris and Lili, without Ceren and Morgana, was odd. It felt wrong.

But still, she continued to push forward. She managed to find a new brothel, much smaller and farther away from the old one. She found a bunch of new girls, who she befriended and looked after just like the previous ones. This time, she was among the oldest ladies here, which only accentuated her protective streak towards them, and she made sure to keep an eye open so that she could make sure something like the raid would never happen again, at the risk of coming as paranoid.

After a lot of troubles and weeks of researches, she also was able to find a man in the city proper who accepted to teach her how to read and write as well as algebraic and geopolitics. This was irksome and really costy, so much she had to give up some meals to make it — but thankfully the guy became quite fond of her, so from times to times she could just pay in nature to prevent her from using all her money and starving. Education truly was a pain in the ass, but she decided she would do it even if it ended up costing her her fucking liver.

The only fixture of her old life was the peacekeepers, who had continued their job even now that Jacopo wasn't here anymore. She didn't see them around very often, but she was still grateful for their presence as it managed to more or less keep the slums from being too lawless, which was especially right now. She would see Gratien and exchange some mindless talks with him at times too at some corner of the streets, but there was some kind of cold between them, a breach left by Jacopo's absence that seemed only to get bigger as the months passed by. Well, Jacopo had always been the primary reason why they'd become friends, so it wasn't odd they'd grew apart once the main guy wasn't around anymore. Still, Maria had noticed a change recently in Gratien's behavior, and he had seemed more… irritated. Distant. And from what she'd heard from the dudes at the pub, it wasn't only an impression. She still didn't feel close enough to him to inquire what the problem was, though.

Things had become… different in the city since Jacopo had taken over. At first, everyone had been excited by the change, but it was obvious things wouldn't suddenly become amazing just because a new ruler had stepped in — there were far too many problems to take care of and to fix all the issues Barnier had left behind. Maria certainly wasn't an expert in economy despite the lessons she'd been taking, but from what she'd managed to gather by hearsay, things were doing better in the city proper, especially for the merchants thanks to the new influx of migrants, and the townsfolk seemed to agree that so far Jacopo was a better lord that Barnier. At least, that was for the city proper. Over here in the slums, well… the truth was, nothing had changed at all. If anything, it was starting to get worse, so much that it wasn't unusual to hear him getting badmouthed around here.

Maria didn't know what to think of it. She tried to tune out whenever this happened, to not let these comments tarnish the image of her friend, and she knew their situation couldn't improve in just a year…. but all of this only cemented her idea that Jacopo becoming the lord had been a mistake. However, she didn't how the man himself was doing. She could hear a few things about the things he had accomplished as a lord here and there, but as for how Jacopo was doing personally… she didn't know. And until she would be able to get a sufficient education, she still wouldn't know. (Though even with this she knew it wouldn't guarantee her a place at Jacopo's side, but she had to try something.)

Although despite the fact she'd now slowly started to get used to her new life, once in a while she still would feel peak of nostalgia and sadness overwhelm her until she couldn't breath anymore. When this happened, and she couldn't help but miss Jacopo and Morgana and Ceren and all the other people she'd lost along the way, she would let her feet wobbly lead her to the graveyard, and spend time there, looking over at the tombs. It ended up making her heart feel at peace somehow, and she wondered if that was why Morgana would always spent so much time in there.

"Another one!" She exclaimed upon putting down her drink fiercely on the table.

The cute barmaid eyed her precariously and smiled awkward.

"Um, but," she said. "Maria… Isn't that your fourth one already…?"

Maria glared at her. "So what? I've got the money, so just shut up and serve me."

"I-I'm sorry!" The young lady flinched at her voice and hurried back behind the bar, her braid and fluffy skirt fluttering behind her. Maria felt a bit bad for lashing out at her as she had done nothing wrong, but she simply wasn't in the mood for this.

It was one of these bad days where she had to dealt with particularly annoying clients and just felt overly so depressed that she decided to stop by the pub and get herself drunk to forget her bad mood. Even her friends at the brothel had noticed and showed concern — and for as much as Maria appreciated them, it was issues she preferred to deal by herself.

The barmaid returned with a bottle and served her in silence, but before Maria got to even sip a mouthful a voice stopped her in her track.

"Didya hear what Jaco— I mean, Barnier did, this time?"

The names caught her attention, and she turned around before seeing a bunch of guys drinking at a table besides her. She knew those dudes. It was the three idiots who always accompanied Jacopo during his stupid escapades — Paul, Nicola and Teo. Maria had always thought they were morons and never understood why Jacopo even hanged out with them, but she wasn't his mom so it wasn't like she given a damn about his acquaintances. And they did quite a good job as peacekeepers in the slums when things got harsh.

The taller one — Nicola — shrugged with an uninterested expression. "Sort of. Honestly, I'm not all that interested in what he's doing anymore. Clearly, he has no interest in us, so."

Teo sighed. "Come on, you never know," he argued, but there was no conviction in his voice.

"You never know? It's been a year and a half now!" Nicola replied. "And he hasn't even given us a crumb of bread."

"Agreed," Paul added. "We need to stop expecting anything from this traitor. In the end, he was just a greedy bastard who used us to get on the top. Ah, he sure must be laughing at us right now, that asshol—"

Maria's blood instantly boiled and unable to stand it anymore, she raised from her seat, grabbed the bottle from the startled barmaid's hands and overthrew all its content on the guy's head. For a moment, none of them moved, then the three men slowly turned their gazes towards her with wide eyes.

"M-Maria?" Teo said weakly, as if he couldn't believe it was her.

"Wh-What the hell are you doing, you bitch?" Paul yelled.

"I'm the one who should ask you that! Weren't you the one who were shit-talking Jacopo behind his back? I can't believe you guys would do that, after everything you went through together!"

"Shit-talking behind his back?" Nicola repeated. "He's the one who betrayed us and completely cut ties as soon as he had the wealthy life he'd always wanted!"

"He didn't betray us!" Maria shouted back. "It's just not possible to improve things in so little time! Your revolution was stupid to begin with, but you're even more stupid if you can't even see that!"

Paul snorted, wiping his face from the alcohol that dripped on his eyes. "We're stupid? Look around you, Maria. It's going to be almost two years, and yet there's no signs from his side! Nothing at all! If he cared ever slightly about us, you'd think there would be at least something! You're the only one around stupid enough to still believe in him now."

And Maria felt like insulting him back, punching him even, but instead she bit her lip and glared with no words coming out of her mouth, because it felt like she'd just been slapped.

"You can always try to get an audience with him if you don't believe us," Nicola added. "Oh, but, wait, I forgot — he doesn't allow audiences with anyone from the lowly populace."

There was so much spite in his words that Maria grimaced, before glaring down at the three them yet again. She'd known these guys since she'd been a kid, and despite the fact she'd always kinda looked down on them, they were still more-or-less friends. Yet at this moment, the coldness between them made them feel like nothing more than strangers. No, not just at this moment — it's been like this for a while, ever since… ever since Jacopo left.

"He didn't betray us," she said, firmly. "Jacopo ain't no traitor."

She said this with a tone that forced admiration and oozed confidence, but the truth was… that she said it this way mostly to convince herself more than anyone else. Then, having no wish to hear what sort of retorts the guys might've had for her, Maria turned around and got out of the pub as quickly as she could. She wasn't usually someone to back down on a fight, but right now she was too depressed and drunk and annoyed to feel like keeping on arguing with anyone.

It was raining very slightly outside — barely noticeable droplets falling on and on from a gray sky. This made Maria think back to when they were kids — back then, she was the one to always say to Jacopo to not pick fights with people unnecessarily, and here she'd just threw an entire bottle on some guy's head because he had said something she didn't like. Truly, there was something wrong with her lately — she felt less and less like herself. Still, Paul and Nicola's angry retorts burned horribly inside her head, and she couldn't stop thinking about them.

In a way, she knew they were right — she had heard more than enough insults and resentment directed at their current lord to know that Jacopo was slowly becoming less and less appreciated, even within the few people who had known him in person here in the slums.

But still — Jacopo wouldn't betray them. He may be "nobility" now — which Maria was still absolutely certain was bullshit — but he was still one of them. He was their friends. Their brother, their family. He wouldn't turn his back on them.

He wouldn't turn his back on Maria. Never.

She still believed this as hard as iron. Or at least… she tried her best to convince herself she did.

Because about a month later, when she accidentally saw Gratien talking in a dark alley with another man, she could do nothing but stop and listen in silence to them, hidden from afar.

"Ayup, got the proof ye was lookin' for. But if ye'd be so kind as to ne'er give me a job like this again… I'd be hanged thrice over if the nobles found out I was sniffing 'round in their business."

Somehow, Maria instantly guessed what the conversation was about. Gratien's odd behavior suddenly made sense — surely he had been feeling the same as Paul and the others, and see Jacopo as a traitor. But his hate seemed to have been a lot more intense than anyone here in the slums.

Maria knew she should intervene. That she should step in, talk to Gratien, do something — anything. But just like that day where Jacopo left her to take Barnier's head, she was unable to. Her mind froze and refused to work as the discussion kept on, and she couldn't move, couldn't bring herself to do anything, not even when each words felt like a stab in her back, not even when the slovenly man muttered that 'his suspicions were correct.'

An ugly smirk arched Gratien's lips as his green eyes shined in an eerie way.

"Don't ya worry. You'll get yer fair due shortly…"

Maria wanted to believe in Jacopo.

She wanted, as much as she could, to believe that the friend she grew up with, that she would've trusted her life with, was still a good man.

But when she was all alone in those slums, surrounded by nothing but crass and poverty, with no one to support her or give her a shoulder to cry from time to time anymore…

It was hard not to vacillate in her convictions.

---

She dropped on her knees as soon as she entered inside the brothel, and the eyes of all the girls present drew on her.

"Maria?" A young newbie who had joined them just two months ago instantly rushed to her side and kneeled next to her. The girl was just barely fifteen and a compassionate, sweet little thing — not a good sign if she wanted to keep surviving around these parts. "Are you okay? Maria?"

But Maria was unable to respond, as her hands, her legs, her arms were still trembling awfully and the dreadful images she'd just witnessed was still haunting her mind.

That hadn't been the first time Maria had seen dead bodies — and it hadn't even been the first time she'd seen dead bodies of people she'd known — but witnessing this gruesome parade of decapitated heads in the town square, as if it had been some morbid, twisted spectacle, was still new to her and more than unsettling. They'd been all here — Paul, Nicola, Teo, all the other peacekeepers and pub dudes. At the center, Gratien's head, skin devoid of colors and green eyes completely placid and vacant, had seemed to be looking down at her like a warning, as if saying "told ya so, dumbass."

And a dumbass, Maria certainly felt like one. She'd always thought these guys to be profound morons, but in the end who had been the idiot who had still wanted to keep believing in her long lost friend when all the warning signs were already there?

Even so, she still felt in denial. Still kept making excuses. Maybe she'd seen wrong. Maybe it hadn't been Jacopo who had ordered this massacre. Maybe something had happened and he had no other choice. That couldn't be completely his fault — it just couldn't. Jacopo was not the kind of person who could execute other humans so cruelly like that.

Gratien's words from two years ago, calling her a coward, resonated heavily in her head like a hammer, as well as that voice who kept whispering to her — you're right, it's not completely his fault, it's yours too.

You kn e w something bad was going to happen when you saw Gratien, and yet you didn't stop him.

You kn e w nothing good would come from Jacopo becoming the lord, and yet you did nothing.

You kn e w you should've hurried in your studies to be able to help him before it was too late.

You're just as much complicit in his crimes as he is—

Maria grabbed her head in her hands and shook it, tried to chase away the voices and the regret eating away at her, but it was all in vain.

She had vaguely heard rumors about what had lead to this public mass execution — apparently a man had attempted to assassinate the lord but failed, some upheavals had followed, and the consul had been murdered in the process. Maria knew it was a heavy matter that couldn't be left unpunished — but decapitating the criminals and putting them on sight like some sort of trophies? Killing off everyone related even slightly regardless of their actual involvement? It was not possible that every single one of those heads had been actually guilty, as there were too many of them. That wasn't justice — it was the means of tyrant to spread fear to his people. That was arbitrary and needlessly cruel and gruesome and so completely unlike Jacopo.

Maria slowly looked at her trembling hands, as if she would be able to find some sort of comfort or answer in the wrinkles of the skin.

What on earth had happened in such a short time? What had happened to Jacopo up there in that mansion?

She didn't know, but for all evidences it had killed him — was still killing him — and for all she'd been trying to study to be of some help to him in the future, it all felt unnecessary now.

She had been too late.

She couldn't forget such a thing — couldn't forgive.

Her chest hurt horribly as she felt someone had torn off a part of her heart and crushed it along with the memories of her closest friend.

---

Trails of light scattered on the sheet as they manage to escape from behind the window's closed curtain.

Maria had been awake for some time, but her body felt heavy and she was unable to bring herself to move until now. Still, she didn't want to spend the whole day in bed, so she did her best to gently untangle herself from the naked woman still sleeping besides her and sat on the mattress. As she ran a hand through her messy blond hair, she heard a groan besides her and saw the blanket move.

"What are you doing…?" The other woman grumbled, still half-asleep.

"I have to go back to the brothel."

"Not yet," she mumbled. "It's still early..."

Maria grinned. "Sorry, honey."

She kissed her temporary lover on the forehead who looked like she wanted to argue more but was too tired for that, so instead she simply went back to sleep as Maria began to put on her skirt. As soon as she was done, she quietly exited the house without a sound, making sure not to bother yet again the sleeping woman who she'd spent the night with. She wasn't particularly close to her — they'd meet a few months ago, and although they had good chemistry Maria wanted to keep it as a casual thing. She had the habit to run away from any kind of serious relationships like a disease, but that didn't mean she couldn't have her fun from time to time. She found out that women were much less clingy and better lovers than men ever were, on top of being more to her tastes. That prevented her of having to deal with stupid jealous clients too, which was always a plus.

This trail of thoughts seemed to have a summoning effect, though, because as soon as she managed to reach the brothel she saw a drunk guy planted in front of the door and banging on it while hurling around insults. She knew the man — he had been a rather frequent client, until he got a bit too much attached to one of the whores and got into his head he wanted to marry her despite the poor woman's repeated rejections, so Maria had to step in and threw him out. Didn't mean it prevented him to come back every once in a while to make some noise and threats like right now.

"C'mon dude, it's like eight in the morning, can't you let it go?" She said with an exhausted expression, and as soon as he recognized her his face hardened.

"You…!" He seethed. "You fucking bitch! It's all your fault! It's cause of what you put in her head that she doesn't wanna see me anymore!"

Maria rolled her eyes. The way men thought that as soon as they'd put their dicks in someone meant they owned them was beyond her. "Sure, that must be it. Now go away."

The guy rushed towards her, grabbing her shoulders and almost shaking her. "I know she loves me! She has to! But all because you whores said she—"

But Maria had no patience today to deal with this bullshit, thus before the man had the time to get too excited she kicked him in the crotch and followed with a good punch, so hard it threw him off on the ground. He barely could understand what was happening that she had already pulled out one of her knives and put it under his throat.

"Given you still haven't gotten the message, I'll have to spell it for you: she actually fucking hate your guts, as do I. So if you want to keep your head on your shoulders, you better scram."

The guy's eyes juggled between her face and the knife, and his drunken mind clearly was torn between his fear and his pride.

"Right now," Maria added, and when she pressed the blade against the skin of his neck, the man hissed, got back on his legs and ran away from her as quickly as he could.

Maria sighed while putting back the knife in her clothes. An odd thought made her think that if this had been a few years ago, she would've tried to resolve the issue without resorting to literal death threats… but she felt the woman she was now was too weary to even consider a pacifistic solution. A more depressing part of her contemplated she wouldn't even be against actually killing the guy if it could give her some peace.

She heard a giggle from behind her. "I see you haven't changed at all, Maria."

"Huh?"

She turned around, then found herself in front of a woman with long blond hair and pale gray eyes. It was a face she was very familiar with.

"Lili…!"

She was a bit older and dressed in a sophisticated, elegant white dress — something girls of the slums could only dream of wearing — but it was definitely her old friend and colleague that she'd known since she was a kid.

"What the hell?" Maria blurted out, a large grin plastering on her face. "It's been so long! And look at, you're stunning! Where did you get those goddamn rich clothes?"

Lili giggled yet again, a soft glint in her gray eyes that Maria didn't realize she had missed so much until now. "A lot of things happened… Just like there must've been quite a few changes on your side, I'm guessing."

"Heh, not so much. I'm still the same as always, y'know."

Maria wondered how much of this statement was a lie and how much was the truth. That was a sad thing she couldn't even tell herself.

"The brothel's the only new thing here, as you can see," she said, gesturing in the building's direction. "With the lots of new annoying guys, like the one who just ran with his tail between his legs. Pretty sure we got even more of these than before."

Lili arched an eyebrow. "Really? Why is that?"

"Well… That might be because of the change of place. Plus, Jacopo's not here anymore and most of the peacekeepers are dead, so as soon as no men are around the clients just think they can do whatever the hell they want."

At this, Lili's expression darkened, and she looked painfully on the ground. "Yeah," she said softly. "I… I heard about what happened…"

Their happy reunion suddenly turned a bit grim, and Maria felt bad for bringing this up. So she quickly grabbed her friend's arm and grinned at her.

"Anyway, come in! I'll make you visit the place and get you some drinks."

Lili tried a feeble smile, and she followed Maria inside. She showed her around, except for the backroom where the other girls were still sleeping in, and then they sat at a table with glasses of alcohol. It was a bit too early to drink, but Maria thought this was a reunion worth celebrating.

"Wow, so you snatched yourself a noble! That explains the dress."

"Yes. Well, I didn't really snatch him. It was more he who snatched me away."

"Still, that's pretty awesome. Though… he's treating you well?"

Lili giggled. "Yeah, you don't have to worry about that. He's a bit boorish sometimes, but overall he's very kind. Otherwise, I would have definitely ran away."

"Good…"

Maria had heard a few stories about nobles taking a liking to some prostitutes, making them into their courtesans or favorites mistresses. But more often than not, these stories ended up badly. The men would either got bored of these whores after a while and abandon them, or, worse case scenario, they were violent towards them and one day you would find those women dead in the corner of a street. And like they were just nameless whores, no one cared about them.

Maria she was still a bit suspicious, but her friend wasn't naive, she knew that perfectly — and if she still chooses to stay by that aristocrat's side despite this, then maybe it was because there was something stronger between them.

"I… the truth is that, I'm going to leave this town soon."

Maria blinked curiously. "Oh?"

"The man I am with… we decided to get married, but we can't do it here. So we need to go away… But… I didn't want to leave before seeing you one last time…"

Maria looked at her, surprised, then a fond smile stretched her lips. "I see. Congratulations, then."

"Truthfully, I'm… I feel bad for leaving like that… a second time. I'm… I'm sorry I left you alone like this back then too…"

"Don't sweat it! It's fine, Lili, I'm just glad you have a shot at a better life now. You only get a chance like that once in a while, and it'll always be better than… whatever this is."

Lili frowned. "Don't say it like that. What you did here is amazing, how you were able to put back the brothel like that…"

"Yeah, I guess so," Maria replied. "It'd be nice if it would stay that way though…"

Lili frowned a little, looking at her with concern. "What do you mean?"

Maria heaved another sigh. "I'm not gonna lie to you, the finances are really bad. Things are only getting worse and worse, and I don't even think we'll be able to last for a few more months like this."

"That's… That's awful…"

"Yeah," Maria smiled in a self-deprecating manner. "Guess I'm really not as good to take care of a brothel without Ophélie and the others here…"

All while talking, she let her gaze wander towards the backroom's door, where the other women were sleeping, and only now did it hit her just how alone she felt. She liked her colleagues, but she had never managed to actually let herself be as close to them as back then. How could she, when it seemed that any meaningful relationship she was able to form always slipped away from her fingers and left her with just a big, vacant hole in her heart?

But still, she cared about these girls. She wished she could do more for them and actually secure the brothel as a safe home… but of course, she was so powerless that even this wasn't possible.

"That's not true," Lili argued gently. "You've always been the best one to lead us, even back when you were just a child. It's not your fault if the businesses are going bad in the slums… There's only so much you can do, and with everything that's going on with… the lord…"

Lili suddenly fell quiet, and her eyes fell on her knees as she looked uncomfortable. It wasn't hard to guess why. If Lili had heard about the revolution and the mass public execution of a few years ago, she must knew about Jacopo too.

This was now that Maria suddenly realized she and Lili were probably the only ones left who knew the lord's true identity, given everyone else had been killed.

"Can't believe Jacopo is the lord," Lili admitted, almost whispering. "In my head, he's still the same young boy I used to play with…"

"He's very much not the same young boy anymore, I can assure you," Maria replied sharply.

Though honestly, Maria wasn't really certain of her those words.

Was he really not? Or had he just never been that boy to begin with? She couldn't tell.

Sometimes, she felt as if she had dreamed up her entire memories with Jacopo. As if the boy who had been her best friend had never truly existed, and it had only ever been the cruel and insane Lord Barnier.

Maybe this would be better if it was the truth, because at least it would hurt less.

Instinctively, she reached towards the knife in her skirt's pocket and let her finger slide along the cold, hard blade.

"Maria… Are you okay?"

She looked up at her old friend, who looked at her with worried eyes. She was glad she'd been able to see Lili one last time, and she was glad that she seemed to have been able to get a better life and would soon be far away from this cursed town and those cursed slums.

"Yeah," Maria replied, smiling, and the lie flew so easily on her lips that it almost managed to convince herself too.

She had lost everything she had left by now. Her family, her friends, her job, her home — and she wasn't even able to protect the new one she'd built here by herself, as it was also going to get snatched away from her soon enough.

But there was one thing left she could do — the last thing she would do for herself, and it was to settle the score with her childhood friend.

The reason why she'd asked the blacksmith to carve her name into this way-too-expansive knife she was soon going to get was to remind her of this, as well to have a proof that it hadn't been just some mistake.

Something tangible to have as a proof of life, a proof of herself.

A proof of their broken friendship that once upon a time she had treasured so much.

Soon, all of this would finally be over.

---

His eyes were laughing.

There was an earnest, happy, maybe even tender shine in them — something that was very unusual, so much that it felt contagious and spread a big smile on Maria's face.

In his arms was a small ball of black fur, meowing and squirming agitatedly.

"So? What do you think?"

Maria smiled awkwardly. "I mean, he is cute, but… I'm not sure we really can do much of anything to keep him."

The boy's face fell. "C'mon, I've been trying to approach it for weeks now. He was all hostile at first and you have no idea how much efforts it took me to be able to hold him in my arms like now."

She smiled, amused by his disappointed face. "So what's his name?"

"Hmm," Jacopo grimaced. "I haven't really decided yet, but I was thinking about naming him Nero."

"Nero?"

"I remember that in my native language, it means 'black," he explained.

Maria didn't reply anything, but she actually already knew that. Because 'nero' also meant 'black' in her native language, but she felt it was something she wanted to keep to herself. So instead, she snorted.

"So you want to name him 'Black' cause he's a black cat,"she replied teasingly. "You sure are very creative, huh."

"Oh, shut up!"

And then suddenly, maybe feeling Jacopo's stirring, the kitty wriggled in his arms and scratched the boy's skin, who yelped and instantly let go. Maria chuckled and kneeled down in front of the small animal before giving him her hand. The cat slowly approached her and sniffed her, before gently licking her hand and starting to purr and nuzzle against her, to Jacopo's astonishment.

"What the hell?" He exclaimed. "It took me a week before he accepted to let me touch him! How come you can just do it like this when you just met him!"

Maria grinned mischievously at her friend. "He has good instincts. He knows how to differentiate the good guys from the bad guys."

Jacopo didn't have the time to retort anything that the kitty took this occasion to slip away at the corner of the street. The young boy desperately shouted at him to "come back here" as Maria just burst out laughing so hard she had to held her stomach. Jacopo being bad with animals was something she didn't know, but that didn't sound surprising at all.

Her friend turned around and tried to glare at her, but after watching her laugh for a moment a glint of amusement shined in his eyes and his face softened until he chuckled a little himself — and Maria was happy to discover that her laugh was as contagious to him as his was to her.

---

His eyes were so cold.

When he looked down at her, holding her arm twisted behind her back, there was nothing but pure coldness. She barely had the time to move a muscle as soon as she entered the room that she had already found herself neutralized.

No matter how much she tried to look for the slightest traces of the earnest dark brown eyes she knew so much, nothing but frigid indifference reflected in it.

She couldn't stand to look at those eyes.

Jacopo — the lord, the lord, not Jacopo, her mind kept screaming at her, but the truth was that there really was no difference at all between the two now — had brushed away her entire revenge plan. The one she'd spent months and months thinking about and ruminating over — he shattered it in a few seconds, as if it had been nothing. As if her resentment and pain and feelings meant nothing.

She could guess the flaxen-haired boy she'd allied herself with had ran away as soon as he saw her getting apprehended, and she felt a bit bad for the kid for not being able to keep her word and kill the bastard, but she didn't care much right now — her only attention was focused on him, on his glacial words that flowed out of his mouth with such impassivity it hurts, on his knee digging into her back.

He asked her why she hadn't even tried to talk to him before, and she thought this was funny — when had Jacopo ever tried to speak with her about anything ? When had he ever tried to actually ask her help or her advice or consult her about his struggles? And now he wanted her to first talk to him?

No, it was far too late, and Maria was done with talking — she was done with everyone and everything, to say the truth, and the burning rage vibrating in her heart seemed to be the only thing keeping her going.

(She tried not to let the 'conniving harlot' insult bother her as much, but it was hard.)

When the swordsman appeared with the blond boy in tow and that he asked his lord if he should kill her, Maria was ready for it. She looked straight at Jacopo and dared him to — dared him to cut off her head and held it in spectacle like he had done to the others, and wondered if he had truly the guts to do it. But her boiling anger and bitterness disappeared as soon as she heard Ceren's name leave his mouth.

The cute and bright smile of the young girl flashed in her mind and in this instant she didn't even try to understand how and why he had killed her, just the fact that he had and that she wanted to do the same to him mattered in her messy mind.

"You were always on the other side… from the day we first met!"

The words slipped up from her mouth with so much hurt and confusion and hatred, and she glared furiously as if hoping this would be enough to kill him from here.

"I should have never trusted you! So it was all bullshit, was it? Every last minute of it!"

Her throat was dry, but she kept staring at him expectantly, because she wanted an answer to this. She needed an answer.

A small, desperate part of her still wanted to believe that her trust and love hadn't been all misguided. That the earnest brown eyes she so loved to see laugh and fill with fondness hadn't been a lie. Not completely.

She needed to know it hadn't all been a mistake.

But Jacopo stayed silent, his face betraying no emotion.

And she understood, that up until the end, he would never allow her any answer.

---

It really had all been a mistake.

She tried to think back on where things had gone wrong — pinpoint the bad choice she'd taken that had guided her down this route, but she couldn't find it.

The witch obviously abhorred her, so she must have done something to warrant her hatred and curse.

Maybe it had been when Jacopo killed the man who tried to rape her, or when she didn't say anything to Gratien, or when she didn't do enough to hold back Jacopo, or when she never tried to stop him before it was all too late. Maybe it had been when she first met Jacopo, befriending this strange boy and stupidly let herself create any kind of attachment to him.

She didn't know. She couldn't tell anymore. Thinking was too hard, and her memories were a mess.

The insane events that had happened in the past few days had wretched her, and nothing made sense anymore.

Morgana's livid corpse and vacant gold eyes still haunted her every thoughts — and the sense of betrayal and of how could he have done something like that, how could he have done that to her of all people never stopped to pass in loop in her head.

(She'd heard about Jacopo's death, but she hadn't been able to see his corpse.

She didn't know how to feel about it.

But Jacopo had died a long time ago in her mind, so dead body or not, it didn't matter in the end.

Nothing mattered anymore.)

She slowly passed her fingers on the cold pavement she was lying on, even though she couldn't even see anything in this darkness.

She was hungry and thirsty and her head was pounding and everything hurts, yet God or fate or whatever still refused to let her die quickly. She really would have to suffer as much as possible up until the end, it seemed.

She thought back about her entire life again, trying to find the slightest bit of comforting memories, feel like there was something she could at least feel happy thinking about or that she would feel proud to leave behind.

But there truly was nothing.

When she knew all her relationships ended up in death and betrayal, there was nothing she could find comfort in.

She chuckled. Her life really had been that miserable, hadn't it.

She closed her eyes, but still refused to let herself cry — like some last bit of resistance towards the universe who was so decided on beating her down and down.

Once upon a time, she would have gone to Hell and back without any hesitation for the boy who had ended up destroying her life and crushed her heart and trust.

Maybe she had truly ended up in Hell for him.

---

When Maria woke up in her bed that morning, she had tears welling up in her eyes and her heart beating loudly in her chest.

She had no idea why, and it was an odd feeling — she didn't think she had a nightmare, just some weird dream. She couldn't really remember what exactly the dream was about, though — it felt so blurry and far away, like something that had happened a long, long time ago, something forever out of her grasp.

She thought there was a boy in the dream — a boy she was friends with and that she liked quite a bit. But it was weird, because all of her friends at her elementary school were girls, and she didn't like boys very much in general — they were all stupid morons who had fun bullying the weird kids or lifting up the girls' skirts. She would never be friends with any of them.

Still, the tears wouldn't stop rolling on her cheeks.

She felt sad and nostalgic and confused and empty.

But more than anything, she felt lonely.

Like she had forgotten something very important to her, but couldn't even put a name on that thing.

So she just sat there in silence, all alone in her bed with her tears and loneliness.