**A/N: Hello my faithful followers. I am super super sorry for the delay. Uni is seriously kicking my butt this semester! I am doing my best to update when I can, which is more than I say for my homework that I put off this past week. So we are on to part two of The Secret of Fiore and some answers will slowly be revealed while more questions are born or left unanswered. Remember, if you are confused about location you can look at the map of Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail Earthland. So what do I have in store for you? Well, stop paying attention to me and start reading to find out!**
Book Two: Lucy's Reverie
Chapter One: Fairy Tail
The kingdom of Fiore, in the Queen's war meeting room….
Mavis was sitting impatiently in her seat awaiting the arrival of one of her companions. She jumped out of her seat when the man finally arrived, and eagerly prompted him for news. "Well, what have you learned? Did everything proceed according to plan?"
The man cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow at the Queen's excited state. "Don't you want to know what Bellum is up to?"
"Not particularly," Mavis huffed.
"I had really hoped that I could distract you for a little while…" the man mumbled.
"Distract me from what?" she demanded.
"Well, the thing is, princess…"
"Queen," Mavis automatically corrected.
"Yes, my Queen, there is a small issue."
"Out with it!" she thundered.
"That is… Well… the thing is…" the man continued to stutter as Mavis grew more impatient. Her eyes began to flash which prompted the man to hurriedly finish his words. "Scarlet… When Walker went to join her for the return, he found her dead."
Mavis collapsed into her seat. "What?" she whispered disbelievingly.
"There is more… Layla's body...Mavis, Layla is missing.
Hot tears immediately sprang to Mavis's eyes. Her face became red but whether if it was from anger, sadness, or a combination of the two or from something else entirely was difficult to say. She sprang to her companion's side and begged, "Please, Leo, tell me you're lying. Tell me this is some elaborate prank. Tell me that I have not lost my daughter, too."
Leo's face fell at his queen's anguish. "I am so sorry, Mavis. When the knight Walker went to meet with his wife, he found someone else who informed him of both Scarlet's death and Layla's disappearance. Walker wanted to do something, but it was too late. Time was up and they all left. My queen, I too disbelieved it but it's true. Nothing happened as it should have that night."
"Impossible," she whispered. Mavis sank to her knees, as her face became hotter and wet with tears. She clutched her chest, and then she remembered something. "Please, tell me that at least my granddaughter is safe. At least Lucy and the boy; tell me they're safe."
Leo's expression froze for a moment. "That is…" he began, but then he stopped himself seeing how distraught the small woman looked curled up on the floor. "Lucy, she is safe with Capricorn. And the boy…he is also in good care," he lied. Leo would find the boy himself and bring him to the Academy, or get someone else to find him and bring him to safety. He knew the boy would be fine so he felt no need to further upset the Queen.
Mavis breathed a sigh of relief. "At least the children are okay, I suppose. But Leo, how did this happen? I mean Scarlet...it is simply impossible. And how could that have happened to Layla? You have to find her, please, you must find my daughter!"
Leo knew that Aries and Virgo were desperately trying to do just that but they had nothing to guide them. Instead of responding, he brought up a different topic. "It's time we declared war on Bellum. We can no longer put this off…"
Mavis screamed in pain from the ache in her heart. "I could care less about silly human affairs. Libra and Pisces will continue to pose as my advisors, and they will speak for me. I will remain in my chambers while you twelve do as you see fit. I need rest," she declared before popping out of the meeting room to her own bed chambers. She went straight to her bed and hid beneath the covers. That night, Mavis shed all of her tears that had been building up in her heart for years. Why should she continue to pretend that she cared about Earthland? Lucy and the boy, the only two left she cared about, were safe and nothing else mattered.
Meanwhile, with a heavy heart but confident in his choice of words, Leo went to find Libra and Pisces. By dawn tomorrow, Fiore would be at war.
Seven years later…
A young man wearing a dark brown traveling cloak stood at the edge of a cliff looking out into the distance. He stood not thinking about anything in particular, though his face was set in a permanent scowl and his brow was furrowed as if contemplating some heavy notions. Rather, he was patiently waiting for his partner to arrive back from his meeting with a contact. At the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind, the man quickly spun around ready to attack the intruder.
The "intruder" laughed at the man's overreaction and put up his hands in surrender. "Relax, Salamander, it's just me." Salamander relaxed his position while stepping closer to his partner. "Titania is waiting for us at a small base called Cait Shelter. If we want to make it there before she becomes impatient and leaves us, we should probably head out now."
"What is she up to now?" inquired Salamander.
His partner shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't bother asking. You know how she is; anyway, let's go while there's still daylight."
"Don't you find the light of the full moon beautiful?"
Salamander and his partner gave each other a confused look before turning their attention back to the small terrified looking woman who had approached them as soon as they had entered the inn. The woman was sweet faced with a plump body hidden beneath a strange layer of clothing one might refer to as a dress. She looked anxiously between the two men waiting for their response. Then she winced as she remembered something.
"The fairies usually come out to play but they had to hide…um they had to…" she stuttered.
Salamander continued to eye the woman with suspicion, and hardly registered the response his partner finally gave to the anxious woman. The pair was handed a note stuffed into an envelope which also held a key and the woman gratefully took her leave to retreat behind the counter.
"Hey, follow me," his partner said.
The two quietly made their way to the stairs that would lead them to the upper area of the inn. They quietly regarded each other before entering the room that the key unlocked. As soon as they entered, a plate went flying at them and a figure quickly raced to shut the door behind them.
"I expected you two here hours ago!"
"Titania, we came as soon as we got the message. Relax! Why are you acting so strange?"
"Were you followed?" she whispered softly.
Salamander's ears perked up at her words. "How did you know we were followed? I didn't send any information ahead."
Titania's head fell for a moment but then she looked up to eye her two friends trying to reassure herself that they were both okay. Titania had a habit of doing this when she was anxious so her companions said nothing as she completed her assessment. When she was satisfied with what she saw, she walked over to the desk to retrieve a long letter that she had written for them. "Frost, I'm most interested to know what you think. Plus, it's not like he wants to read," she said tossing her head at Salamander. To said man she asked, "Tell me about the person who followed you. No one should be interested in our conversations here."
Salamander's face grew serious as he contemplated her words. "I realized it when we stopped for supplies. I think it was the same guy who delivered your message. I used one of our longer underground routes to get rid of him since it seemed like his job was just to watch us. He wasn't very good at being discreet and it didn't even seem like he was actually interested in his mission. I'm pretty sure no one followed us all the way here. Is that why we received the strange welcoming when we arrived?"
Titania breathed a sigh of relief trusting her companion's abilities. "Yes, I was concerned and I thought it best if I hid up here instead of obviously waiting for others to arrive." Titania closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "On my way back from the mission location, I stopped at a tavern and overheard some curious conversation. I hadn't yet decided to contact you or where we would meet if I chose to ask for help. Everything is there," she said pointing a finger at the letter that Frost was still reading. "We have a new objective."
"Titania, are you sure about this?" Frost asked gravely looking up at her.
"Yes, I saw it for myself. I thought the situation was a little smaller so I was going to handle it myself, but after overhearing those men at the tavern I realized there was more," she explained.
"You realize what this is right?" Frost asked trying to understand her.
"Of course; all the more reason why I need you both and all the more reason why we are still going."
"Hey, someone want to fill me in on what's going here," Salamander said calmly.
Frost studied Titania for a moment before responding to his partner. "There's a town in Seven that's been captured but you could never tell from the outside. While our mission was to find out if Seven was still safe territory and we should probably just be reporting this information, Titania's little side trip uncovered something."
"Get to the point already," Salamander snapped impatiently.
"It's a trap," Titania explained. "Someone knew that we, Fairy Tail in particular, would be going to Seven to investigate the areas. What is strange is that the town they've chosen is just over the mountains and they could have easily infiltrated Fiore by a number of means yet they are luring us there. Why Fairy Tail? Most importantly, how did they know what we were doing?"
The three stared at each other in silence.
"You want to go?" Salamander asked quietly.
Titania looked at him. "We have to, Salamander. Innocent people, children, have been captured and are forced to act as if they are not being mistreated. I wish I had known while I was there; I could have found out more about the situation. The state of the people is all I learned from those bastards," she seethed.
Frost rolled his eyes. "Did you get carried away again? You left a few survivors, didn't you?"
Titania looked away. "I took away their manhood which for some could be considered a fate worse than death." Frost and Salamander instinctively reached down in protection before sheepishly pretending to be adjusting their clothing. Titania smiled at their behavior but her expression instantly returned to her more serious look. "Right now, I care little about our original objective and I promise to send word before we leave. Please, come with me to liberate those people? There couldn't possibly be many there and I'm sure we could…"
Frost put a hand on Titania's shoulder. "We've wasted enough time here talking. Let's get some supplies and head out."
Titania touched his hand with gratitude and simply nodded in response.
The trio collected some food and a few other supplies they felt they would need since they would be unable to resupply in enemy territory. On the way, Titania continued to explain what she had heard the men talking about. She learned that the women had been taken away somewhere else, and that the men and children were forced to provide labor for some secret project that the men knew nothing about. It seemed that before letting the women go, the men had their way with them and one or two took to enjoying some of the children or having them perform sexual favors. This news is what caused Titania to react and injure them the way she did, it was one of the harshest things that she had ever done in her career. She was determined to free the town and take everyone to the next nearest town, an overnight journey she would accompany the people on. She demanded that Frost and Salamander assist her mostly because she was worried about how she would behave.
Meanwhile, Salamander was contemplating the trap that lay ahead of them. Fairy Tail had a reputation that was known to even commoners as a fierce, ruthless mercenary guild. The group was meant to keep their activities underground, but sometimes things got out of hand. On the outside, they kept up their fierce appearance for varying personal reasons. On the inside, they were actually the underground force for the Queen of Fiore, a fact unknown to anyone not a part of the underground world. Most of their missions consisted of keeping enemy supplies low, assisting towns or villages move to safer locations, and other tasks considered to be of too little importance to the Queen's knights. Nearly every member of Fairy Tail was originally training or was already a knight, but when they saw that not only were they not doing anything to help the people but also doing little to bring an end to the war they all quit without a word. This was a particularly hard day for Titania, but this is a story for another time.
Fairy Tail and a few other mercenary guilds were all the people of Fiore had to count on to keep them safe and to end the seven year long war. The most recent missions consisted obtaining as much information about the enemy as possible due to their recent activity, or really the lack of recent enemy activity in the past few months. Some hoped that the enemy grew tired of fighting; others thought it was just a cold state of war; those in the underground suspected that the enemy was planning something big enough to be disastrous for all of Earthland. While Fiore had been sending out forces to other countries to help in their battles, the enemy slowly began attacking Fiore directly after realizing the power of their forces. Fiore had been a place of refuge, but with the attacks the safe sites were becoming few and far between.
This is where Fairy Tail came in; their current objective was to scout the security of the country that had been home to refugees and all kinds of outsiders for many years- the country of Seven. Titania, Frost, and Salamander had been sent to investigate the town of Vier as it was the closest to Fiore. Titania had insisted it would be suspicious for the three of them to go, so she had went on by herself. The trio had finally stopped and hid around the bend that would lead them to their destination as they discussed the situation.
"Titania, you never did explain how you came to think we were being set up," Frost commented.
"Didn't I tell you? A messenger had arrived at the meeting place and I gave him the message, but then not too long later another member arrived claiming to be the messenger. This is why I stress to the master that we need more regulars; it's too confusing and leaves too many holes," she explained.
"I wonder which one is the one I spoke with; I cannot imagine you paid much attention to his appearance."
Titania shook her head no. "I should have but I was careless. The only reason why I met both of them is because I decided to take a short nap there since I wanted to head straight to Cait Shelter. It was careless of me, I know."
Frost shook his head in disbelief. "Yes, but maybe this could work out in our favor. Maybe Seven is where the enemy has been hiding and we can finally report some useful news."
"I thought Seven was like spiritual or something," said Salamander thoughtfully.
Frost moved to answer but Titania answered him first. "It is. The capital city, Trinity, is a sacred city and all of the other six cities are set up like monasteries providing safety and a new life for exiles. I am surprised you knew," she said wryly.
Salamander made a face but did not respond to her last words. "If it's a sacred place and all, then it's not likely they are building weapons here and I can't imagine Vier was hard to take over if there's no arms allowed."
"True," Frost said following his train of thought, "If they do have weapons or if the enemy is planning something here, then they would have to get most of their supplies from the outside. We've got most of their routes on the map, and I'm pretty sure none lead here."
"It's possible they have their own underground network. I guess we could have missed one of their routes as well," Titania added grudgingly since she was one of the people who had helped create the map of their enemy's movements.
Frost smiled softly. "It's also possible that some of the towns in Seven could have their own hidden supplies, just in case," he comforted.
"I guess," was Titania's reluctant response.
"Anyway, why would they be interested in sacred cities anyway? Bosco would be a much better city to use as a base," Salamander said to bring back the conversation.
"Seven would put up little fight and it's believed that very few people actually live here. They say mostly priests travel to the capital for pilgrimage, but that's all."
They thought quietly for a moment but could come to no sound conclusion as to why their enemy would choose a sacred country as a base for their operations. "I guess there's only one way to find out," Frost declared. "We could easily pass ourselves off as missionaries or just people making a pilgrimage to the capital during these tough times."
"Yes, let's go," Titania agreed.
Deep within the forests of Fiore…
"Master!" called a woman frantically. "Jet just arrived with a letter from Titania. She thinks Vier has been captured and she is going to take action. What should we do?"
The master in question sat in a large red velvet chair and was staring out into space. He was a small man, all of his hair completely white. He wore an aged dark yellow cloak around himself, which currently concealed his black pants and burgundy top. He sat slumped in the chair causing him to appear even smaller. "Who else is going with her?"
The woman stuttered a little as she said, "F-Frost and S-S-Salamander. The three of them were investigating the area together…"
The older man's face paled a little bit at this news which he already knew somewhere deep in his mind. He sighed and gestured for the letter the woman was still holding. After reading it over, he sighed. "We had better send help. If my memory is still any good, there is someone there that could cause a much bigger stir than they may have intended. At any rate, we will need to clean up the mess and repair the town. Gather supplies and medicine we might have that might be of help to abused citizens. Remember, we are the merciless mercenaries of Fairy Tail and we must keep it that way, understand?"
The woman nodded sadly and left the room, her long brown hair flying loosely behind her.
The master got up out of his chair and thought quietly to himself for a moment. "I guess the real war begins now," he said to himself. He went back to his desk and made ready to write a note to an old friend of his. A flurry of feelings overcame him as he wrote his letter and he tried hard not to think of the teenagers who lived their lives as the most hated but most respected mercenaries of Fiore. He tried hard not to think of the weight that each of them carried, and he tried not to think of the pain behind every tear the girls shed and every fist fight the boys had between each other. He tried hard not to think of what might have been, and he tried hard not to think of what this war would ultimately mean for all of Earthland.
The Master of Fairy Tail thought of nothing but Titania's plea as he carefully worded his letter to a friend he had not spoken to since the night before the war of Earthland officially began all those years ago—the night of a little girl's birthday and the fire the dawn had brought to Fiore.
In Vier...
Frost let out a deep sigh of disbelief. "Titania, just this once, couldn't you control yourself?"
"Absolutely not! A moment longer and those filthy hands would have touched me."
"Hey, he said he wanted to see your face," Frost snapped.
"Humph. That's what he said, but his intentions were clear." Titania cleared her throat and turned away from him. "Perhaps it's better this way. We will have a better chance to talk to the people here. If they are in here, then it must be for a reason."
"Here" was the prison area in Vier. The trio had agreed to approach the gates as people looking for refuge in the country of Seven. Titania was concerned that someone would recognize her so she had hid her figure and face beneath Salamander's oversized brown travelling cloak. Upon approaching the gates, the soldiers were about to let them through when one of them decided that a cloaked figure was suspicious. Frost had covered by explaining that she was a priestess and could not show her face to men. The guard acted displeased and insisted on seeing the face beneath the hood. Before his fingers could touch the rough material, Titania had grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm threatening him to try to touch her. Of course, this completely blew their cover and three were put in jail. However, it seemed more because the man was angry that a woman had bested him as opposed to the three of them being suspicious.
"Yeah, and how exactly are we supposed to do that from here exactly?"
"I might be able to help you out," a ragged voice spoke.
Together, the three of them turned around to see who owned the creepy voice. A haggard man with a long, dirty gray beard and little hair on his head wearing a long tattered torn tunic looked over at them from a corner of their cell. Somehow they had not realized that they had any company, and they were not too sure how to feel about the man who was quietly listening to them.
"Who are you?" Salamander whispered fiercely.
"I should be asking you that, but I can't say I care much. I'm just an old man locked up in this cell because I wouldn't cooperate, and I'm still here because I am too sick to fight back. You want my help or not?"
The man began to hack and cough furiously; his coughing was so harsh Titania wondered if he had been holding it in so as not to be noticed. He must have been gauging them quietly as they talked amongst themselves. He was old and sick, and she could not imagine that this frail man would bring them any harm. Plus, he claimed to have been captured so that must mean he was an original citizen of Vier. Titania's thoughts were racing so she said nothing, but Frost wanted to complete their mission so they could leave.
"We want to know what happened here. This country is supposed to be a place of refuge, yet this city has clearly been captured. Please, any information you can offer us would be appreciated," said Frost.
Between coughs the man answered, "And why should I tell you anything?"
This time Titania moved towards the old man and knelt down beside him. She lowered her hood completely to reveal her red hair and did her best to look straight into his aged eyes. "We're not here to harm you. We will free all of you if we can, but to do that we need information." Titania leaned into him to whisper into his ear, "We are Fairy Tail mercenaries."
The man's eyes widened at her pronouncement and turned his head to get a better look at her. He glanced at her for only a moment before resting his eyes on her hair. He lifted a hand to reach out to her, and Salamander made to stop him but Frost held him back with a small shake of his head. The man touched Titania's thick red hair and then gently passed his fingers through her long tresses. He began to cry. "I never thought I would see you again."
Titania gave him a puzzled look. "I'm sorry, but I do not believe we have met."
The man coughed again and pulled away from her closeness. "Of course, you wouldn't recognize me. Look at me! Old and falling apart, nothing like the strapping young man I was before, training a scrawny girl of a would be knight the way of the sword." The man turned away, his coughing becoming stronger and stronger. "At least, now I can die in peace. I know this is why my mistress sent me here."
Titania looked towards Frost and Salamander who shrugged their shoulders indicating their shared confusion. Titania tried to focus on what he had said to her, and very slowly realization hit her. Titania snapped her eyes up to look at the old man before her. "Rob?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Oh! So you do remember this old man after all, eh?" he laughed. "You've grown since the last time I saw you, Erza. You're as beautiful as your mother, you know."
Frost's and Salamander's eyes shot open at the use of their comrades name. "Hey, we're undercover. Do you mind?" Frost snapped.
"Relax, they only check down here twice a day; once for feeding and once to see if anyone died."
Titania was still frozen in shock. She had not met anyone from her past before, and her swords master was the last person she expected to find in Seven. Then something he said hit her. "Wait, you remember my mother?"
The man looked at her as if she was crazy. "How could anyone forget a woman like that? Of course, I remember Scarlet." Titania was surprised at his declaration.
"You said your mistress sent you here," Salamander began, "can you tell us about that?"
Rob studied them for a moment before his eyes lit up with recognition. "You boys are well, too? That's good to see, very good to see." His eyes wandered for a moment as if he was looking for another person but when no one else met his eyes, Rob looked away from them to focus his eyes on the dirt ground he was sitting on. "Yeah, the day before the birthday party, Scarlet told me that I had to leave the estate. Of course, I put up a huge fight 'cause I didn't understand what I did wrong, you see? She said I had to come here because you would need me one day. She told me I had to be here waiting for you, and that I was to leave the following day. It made no sense to me at the time. Heck, until I seen you three here now, I had no idea what I was doing here." Rob paused to catch his breath and let out another hacking cough. "I guess she knew you three would need someone to talk to. She probably didn't know I'd be damn near my deathbed by the time you came here."
Titania stood up suddenly as soon as Rob finished speaking and went to go stand in the opposite corner of the cell. She stood tall and her body did not move in the slightest so the others had no idea what she was doing. Frost had an idea of Titania's actions, so he decided to push along the topic. "What can you tell us about what happened here?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, I've been here the whole war," Rob said shifting in his seat. "It was real quiet up until about a few months ago. A lot of people coming and going all of a sudden; it was strange because Vier is not a very convenient place to get to from anywhere but Fiore, but don't nobody come through here from there. Now that I think about it," he paused for a moment and rubbed a hand absently on his bushy beard. "I remember hearing about a strange woman coming through here a while back, she kind of sounded a little like you but I didn't think much of it at the time. Well, anyway, a week ago, these rogue-looking guys came and just took over the town. Just like that!" he finished with a snap of his fingers.
"Wait, don't you have people here that can fight or something? And how could you all be so sick so fast?" Frost inquired.
"And why isn't everyone down here with us?" Salamander added.
"Well, we think that the enemies must have been messing with our supplies. We import everything, from food to clothes to books; just about everything comes from somewhere else. Times are harder now because of the war, see?"
"Who's 'we'"? asked Salamander.
"Me and some other old guys who didn't care much for what they were doing. They rounded up all the women and children, and sent most of them away claiming that news had arrived that the enemy was going to infiltrate Vier. They sent off our strongest men with them to protect them, they said. It was suspicious that they were sending people off like that, little by little and all, so I spoke up about it and they just said it was a safety thing. We began to grow suspicious after the third group was sent off, and I guess that's when I heard about the red head so we got to thinking they were killing us off. No chance you saw any sign of them, eh?" he asked looking over at Titania. Her figure stood completely still, and it finally dawned on Rob that he had been thoughtless with his words and that she was currently processing what he had said. He turned away from her and cleared his throat. "Anyway, the women were taken advantage of, I'm told, before they were sent off and I hear the children were mistreated, as well, but I don't know what happened. They have us walk around the town like nothing is wrong, but that's all they make us do. We can't figure out what they want with us. We're just a quiet old town filled with people who wanted a new life. We have nothing to offer them."
Rob finished explaining and he now sat heaving labored breaths from his efforts of speaking. Titania still had not moved a muscle and she continued to stand rigid in the corner. Frost and Salamander regarded each other trying to understand the information Rob had given them.
"Have they asked for anything or been doing anything suspicious?" asked Frost. Rob shook his head in response but didn't open his mouth to speak. "So there isn't some secret project or something?" Again, the old man offered the same response.
"Well, we believed that this capture was meant to be a trap for us," said Salamander. "But that doesn't really make any sense. How could they have known that we could come here? And what happened to those people?"
"Maybe because they knew that an old man was waiting here for the daughter of his mistress," came Titania's voice softly. "Maybe they thought I would come here to save him. Maybe… maybe it is my fault that the people here have suffered."
Frost and Salamander said nothing because the possibility was too great. Although, her theory did not answer the question "why."
"Don't be foolish, girl!" Rob snapped. "No one even knows who I am here. No one asks questions and no one goes looking for trouble. Half the people here could have been thieving murderers for all we know, but we don't because don't ask."
"Rob," Frost said seriously, "Titania could be right. It would be the only logical reason why they thought we would come through here. After all, there are probably other groups scouting Seven but they knew that we in particular would come here. We can't overlook that."
"Then wouldn't they have captured me or done something to draw your attention?"
"Titania, what did they say that caught your interest? It was the children, wasn't it?" asked Frost.
Titania nodded her head. "I heard them talk about torturing little ones and one man talked about the fun time he had with a mom in front of her children. I cannot even say what kind of fun it was, but I was furious. I am sure if you had heard, you would have wanted to come here, too. I do not believe that it was specifically geared towards me."
"Then I don't understand what I'm doing here," Rob said sadly.
Salamander's head popped up as a thought came to him. "So that we would talk openly with someone we trust," he said quietly.
Titania turned to him. "What do you mean?"
"Even though we said we would talk to the villagers, it wouldn't have been easy to sort out the truth from lies; the villagers from the enemy. But we have no reason not to trust an old friend, do we? See how quickly we listened to him? Rob, to be honest, if you were not in that current condition," Salamander explained indicating the old man's poor health, "I can't say I would have trusted you quite so easily."
"You think all of this was planned?" asked Frost incredulously.
"You three took much longer to figure that out than I expected. By the stars above that was a dreadfully long, painful discussion to listen to."
The trio ran to the bars and tried to look for the person who was talking to them, but they could not make out anything in the darkness of the hallway. "Who's there?"
A sinister laugh rang through the hallway in response to the question. "Titania, Frost, and Salamander; it must be my lucky day to capture three of the foremost members of Fairy Tail. Titania, you should really learn to control that temper of yours," the voice taunted.
Titania stiffened and desperately wanted to rip through the bars to do some damage to the person taunting them. "Show yourself!" she demanded.
"Titania, my dear sweet Titania, do you remember me?" the man asked with dark charm as he stepped into the light across from their cell.
"Bora? What are you doing here? I thought you learned your lesson in Hargeon! Are you selling these people, too?" Titania demanded.
Bora laughed harshly. "It took me a long time to recover after that. But no, my dear Titania, I have other plans in the making now. And one of them happens to be capturing you."
"Me?" Titania's expression hardened. "What do you want me for?"
Bora eyed Titania's body with distaste as he noticed she was covered in the brown travelling cloak. "For starters, you could remove that hideous cloak."
"Hey, Bora! What are you up to down there? There's no women there, you know?" teased a woman's voice.
"Ikaruga, I am just talking to our prisoners."
"Oh?" the woman said having reached Bora's side. She looked over at the three in the cell with a bored look on her face. "Aren't they the ones who punched what's-his-name in the face?"
Bora laughed heartily. "That would be this little firecracker here. She was about to hand over the information."
"You…as a woman you encourage his vulgar behavior?" Titania asked with disgust dripping in her voice.
"I could care less what he does with his time. Well, now I'm bored, I'll be going now," she announced.
"Just give me a minute, will you?" he snapped at her. Ikaruga heaved a sigh but slumped against a wall and watched with obvious disinterest. "Now, Titania, you will tell me everything."
"I will tell you nothing!" she spat.
"Hey, genius, you haven't even said what you wanted to know," taunted Frost.
Bora stepped a little closer to the cell, but was still out of arm's reach. "Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot that part." He brushed his hair back with a hand and cleared his throat. "Titania, where is your little friend?"
Titania looked at him eyes filled with disgust and confusion. "Who are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb with me! You know who I'm talking about!" yelled Bora.
Frost and Salamander gave each other a look in regards to Bora's obvious inexperience with such situations. "Why do you think she knows? Maybe you've got the wrong girl," commented Frost still trying to taunt the man so he could reach him.
Bora placed his hands on his head in panic. "No! Our leader told us that you two were best friends!" His face twisted in horror at the possibility that he had gotten the wrong girl.
Ikaruga sighed with contempt for her partner. "Don't be such an idiot. You're falling right into their trap." She walked over to their cell while smoothly producing a long bladed katana ready to attack them if necessary. "If I remember correctly, the girl was particularly close with this red one, but she was even closer with this boy here," she said indicating Salamander with her blade. "I'm not sure about this other one, but then she had a wide circle of friends so he could also know her whereabouts. You know, I half expected to find her with you."
"Just who are you talking about and maybe we won't have to waste our time talking in circles," retorted Salamander impatiently. "Or maybe you want to tell us why you planted false information at every possible place that we could hear."
Ikaruga snorted softly. "Not everything was a lie," she whispered spitefully. "If you tell us where the blonde girl is, we'll let you live another day."
"What girl? Spit it out already!"
Ikaruga gave him a dark, scornful smile. "Her name, I believe, is Lucy."
Titania's eyes widened in shock and she stepped away from the bars. Frost was also caught by surprise by the woman's demands and fell back against the wall to his left. Salamander…Salamander snapped and landed a sharp, hard kick on the prison cell's bars freeing them. Ikaruga stepped back in pleased surprised and readied her weapon, while her partner Bora fled back up the stairs to safety and to call for help. Salamander did not move right away and instead he stood there seething with his eyes glued to the ground. Ikaruga boldly took a step forward and placed her blade at Salamander's neck.
"Ah, so you do know where she is after all," she spoke.
Faster than Ikaruga could register his movements, Salamander swiftly grabbed Ikaruga's blade from the center and promptly broke it in half. She could only stare in shock at his actions and the fact that he had so easily broken her most prized weapon. Salamander stepped towards her but stopped when Titania touched him. "She is still a woman," she whispered to him. In his place, Titania stepped towards Ikaruga, grabbed a wrist and twisted her arms behind her back before shoving her against the cold stone wall. "I think you are the one with something to tell us, so I suggest you start talking. I will not hold back."
Frost stood by watching, shaking his head in amusement. "Oi, Salamander, why didn't you do that sooner? We could have left already."
Salamander relaxed a little and lifted his head up. "You said you wanted information. I think we have it now." He made his way over to Titania and Ikaruga, purposely stepping on the latter's broken blade on the ground. He focused on the woman's eyes with his own dark, angry ones.
"Now, what do you know about my Lucy?"
*A/N: So do our heroes know where Lucy is or do they need to control themselves long enough to find out Lucy's whereabouts? What will happen next? Patiently stay tuned to find out in the next chapter of Lucy's Slumber: Falling Into Place. I will post when I can :) Thank you!*