*puts off the inevitable*
Review! :D
People all over were watching as Gilbert tried to rouse Elizaveta. He had to fake the performance, as he already knew what had happened to her.
It had been easy.
Slip a pinch of cantarella into his glove, let it slide out.
Easy.
He couldn't help feeling a tinge of guilt as he looked down at her still face. What if this was a bad idea?
His resolve banished the doubt. He'd waited years. He couldn't wait any more.
But first, he had to get them away, spirit himself and his love out of the room.
A few people had started to come over to help, and Gilbert knew that this would make the wait even longer. He finally appeared to give up, setting the chair upright and slumping Elizaveta in it before barging into the kitchens angrily.
The kitchens were warm and full of steam and enticing aromas. Curiously enough, all the workers in the kitchen were black-haired men and women with similar features. He assumed a family had gotten drafted for the position. As he watched, a woman with a long braid shouted in another language over to a solemn-looking young man with rather thick eyebrows, who in return tossed over a satchel of spices. It looked, at the same time, both very organized and very chaotic. Organized chaos.
Knowing he had to keep up the façade, he yelled, "Where's the one who served us?"
All the eyes turned to him, and after a moment, the one with the braid called, "Anh trai!"
The ponytailed man bustled out from a back room, his arms piled high with sacks of rice. "Eh? What is it, aru?" With a thump, he deposited the sacks on the ground. "Oh, it's you. What's the matter? Did you not like your meal, aru?"
"What is your name, so I can report you to King Arthur for attempted murder by poison?"
The man looked affronted. "I poisoned nobody, aru!"
"Your name," Gilbert deadpanned.
"Yao Wang."
"What type of wine was it? Elizaveta may have been allergic to it."
"Eh, it was..." Yao raised his eyes to the ceiling, and then turned to an excited looking man with a hair curl. Yao barked out an order in the unfamiliar language, and the other man rifled through his pockets, finally pulling out a piece of paper. He read it. "Eh, trockenbeerenauslese, da-ze."
Gilbert raised a brow. Trockenbeerenauslese was incredibly expensive and one of the best wines out there. He was sorry to have ruined Elizaveta's glass with cantarella, but it was necessary.
"All right. I'm keeping an eye on you." With that cryptic statement, he left. The yearning inside him was a bubble about to pop.
He strode back out of the kitchens, pushed through the crowd of people -almost everyone in the room was standing, aside from a man sleeping on the back tables- surrounding Elizaveta, and proclaimed, "I'm going to take her to her rooms for air."
His comment was met with nods and well-wishes. A cheerful, auburn-haired young man offered to help, and Gilbert politely declined, sounding calmer than he felt. He scooped Elizaveta into his arms -she was so light- and made for the darkness beyond the doors.
The indigo butterflies followed him, and he ignored them completely. Let them come, he challenged. They can do nothing to me.
By the time he'd ascended the stairs, he was leading a wide swath of undulating indigo wings, so thickly packed together that they probably could've carried items on top of them. More butterflies joined all the time, until it was as if they were a cloak fastened to his shoulders, swishing with each movement. They swarmed over his shoulders, crawling onto his vest like decorative pin.
None of them could touch Elizaveta, cradled in his arms.