Chapter III: Something There?

Luan was busy the next day, and the next, and the one after that, but she always stopped by to slip a little note (always accompanied by a pie and some bad puns) onto the windowsill. For his part, Benny sent her a few yellow lilies, and some updates on what he was painting on the walls: a sun, some birds, and a flower or two. He didn't mention everything he was drawing, of course, since he wanted to leave a few things as surprises when she came to visit him again. He had a feeling Luan was the type of person who loved surprises.

He also trimmed back the thornbushes, wanting to make the pathway a little more accessible, and not wanting her beloved cloak to get torn. She'd thanked him for that in one of her notes, adding that constantly getting pricked by the thorns had been no poking matter.

He wondered how often she thought of him, especially since it seemed like she was always on his mind. He'd wake up before the sun, trying to listen for a knock at the door or look for a flash of yellow, but she was incredibly quiet and sneaky. He'd look away for a moment, and there'd be something new on the windowsill, with never a trace of the quick, clever girl who'd left them there.

Until one day he woke up to the dreary sound of heavy rain, and the not-so-dreary sound of someone knock-knocking on the door.

"Knock-knock? Are you in there?"

"I'm here! Who's there?"

"It's Luan."

Benny tried very hard, and very unsuccessfully, to keep himself from grinning like an idiot. "Luan who?"

"You know perfectly well who I am, you Luanatic." As Benny was thinking that this was an oddly appropriate term to describe him considering how she'd basically taken over all of his headspace, she continued: "Sorry. That was all I could come up with. I wish I had a name that was a little more punnable. Would've made my life a heck of a lot easier."

"I've Benny missing you a lot, you know," he said, eager to rival her with a pun of his own.

"Aw. Good one."

Benny tried to imagine what her smile was like on the other side of the door. Probably impossibly big, impossibly bright, and impossibly adorable.

"But seriously, open the door. It's pouring out here."

Right. He'd forgotten there was a door between them. He unlocked the latch on the door and turned the rusted doorknob.

Luan greeted him with a wave and with her contagious smile. Her familiar cloak hung over her shoulders, dripping wet and clinging tightly to her small frame, the water already pooling into a puddle on the doorstep. She didn't seem to be bothered by the rain; her expression was just as cheerful and sunny as ever. A deeper inspection revealed that she was wearing a few of the lilies he'd left for her around her wrist as a corsage. He couldn't help but notice how natural the flowers looked against her yellow sleeve, and how well they complimented the slight traces of gold in her amber eyes. Almost as if they'd been made just for her. Almost as if…

He looked down at his feet. No. I can't think of her like that.

It was probably too late to break his curse anyway, and any attempts at mentioning the solution to her would only put pressure on her. The kind of pressure that might cause her to worry, or worse, leave him for good. They were friends, and that was all he could hope for. He'd focus on enjoying her while she was here, and on nothing else.

That was enough. Her company had been the best and most exciting thing to happen to him in years.

He met Luan's gaze again just in time to see her eyebrows raise in surprise. "Is your tail wagging? I didn't know it could do that! Okay, that's totally cute."

He realized that it was, and that he liked the way it felt.

But cute? How and why did she think of it like that?

She stepped inside, pulling her wet cloak over her head and wringing it out, then hanging it on the doorknob to dry off. She wore a simple straw-colored skirt and tunic underneath, with only a splash of her trademark brighter yellow in the form of a single lily woven through one of her button holes. She closed the door, blocking out the storm outside, and set down a heavy-looking basket she'd been carrying.

Luan leaned against the stone wall and looked around curiously. "Oh, I love what you've done with the place!"

He'd had, of course, a lot of free time, so he'd spent the last few days painting the lobby's walls with whatever came to mind. Several round yellow suns were scattered randomly around the room, with a mural of a rainbow taking up a large section of the back wall. A few yellow-trunked trees started along the floor and stretched up to as tall as he could reach, their pink leaves housing a few sky-blue birds. Even with only three colors to work with, he'd managed to capture everything happy he'd found outside and find ways to bring it inside. Luan's influence made the Stone Castle a better place even when she wasn't physically there.

She wandered around the room for a few moments, occasionally stopping to brush her delicate fingers along the outlines of his drawings. She had to crane her neck to look at the canopies of the painted trees, almost losing her balance in the process. Benny smiled to himself as he sat down to watch her playful, curious movements, and he wondered if she knew that she was the muse who had inspired everything he'd made.

She traced the outline of a tiny painted butterfly, and then she spoke, breaking the silent spell: "I wasn't supposed to stay this long. My family-we're a traveling show, so we're always on the move. We're almost never in one place for more than a week or so. But it just so happens that my little sister, Lola, and I managed to land parts in the local theatre's play. So it looks like I'm sticking around for a while." She looked at him, her fingers still brushing against the wall.

"I'm glad," he said, and he meant it. But deep down, he was also worried. She could leave at any moment, possibly without even getting the chance to say goodbye, and then where would that leave him? Alone again, for quite possibly forever. It had been awful to have no one around before she'd arrived, and it would feel even worse after she was gone.

All he could do was make the most of having her while she was here. After all, someone so bright and radiant couldn't last forever.

She said something surprising next, which honestly shouldn't have shocked him at this point since by now he was perfectly aware that Luan was full of surprises. "Do you think you could help me practice my lines for the play? I wouldn't ask, but all of my siblings are too busy, even Lucy, and normally she jumps at the chance to act out a dramatic death scene."

Eagerly, he sprang up from his spot on the floor, landing nimbly on his feet and finishing with an overly theatrical bow. "I'd be honored to be of service, fair maiden! For all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

Luan giggled. "I take it you're an actor?"

"In another universe, perhaps. What play?"

"Romeo and Juliet. I'm playing Juliet. My sister's the messenger, which she was pretty mad about since she wanted the play to be all about her, but I told her there are no small roles."

"Only small actors," Benny finished.

"See? You totally get me." Luan sought out her basket, which she had left by the door, and pulled out a thick script. She walked over to the empty table in the corner of the room and sat down in one of the chairs. He took the one across from her, but as he sat down, the chair emitted a loud and rather unpleasant fart sound. He stared at his chair, completely bewildered, and mildly embarrassed, then stood up to inspect the seat cushion. It had been replaced by a whoopee cushion.

"Would you call that a 'noble gas?'" Luan quipped, before laughing hysterically. It was a good thirty seconds before she managed to contain herself. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."

"When did you have the time to do that?" He hadn't noticed her approaching the table the entire time she'd been here.

She shrugged, smiling slyly. "I have my ways."

Her clever sneakiness impressed him. She was clearly a seasoned professional, and it would take some serious next-level thinking to get her back for this crude-humored prank.

She passed him her script, and he took it gently, doing his best not to puncture the paper with his sharp claws. "Start with Act One?" she asked.

So he did, playing most of the roles and helping her along whenever she got stuck on one of her lines. They skipped around in the script, practicing the scenes she was most hung up on before coming back around to the others. Luan laughed as he attempted to make his voice high-pitched and shrill when he read the Nurse's lines, and nodded approvingly at his humble performance of the steadfast Benvolio. Her eyes widened as he acted out Mercutio's death, shouting and cursing as he pretended to clutch his chest, bleeding out from an imaginary stab wound. He hadn't had much acting practice in a while, aside from trying to make up different voices for all of the characters whenever he read a book out loud, and so he was more than a little rusty. But his old, rekindling passion for acting, coupled with Luan's priceless expressions, encouraged him and urged him to keep going. He'd gladly trip all over himself if it meant he'd get to see her make hilarious shocked faces, with her eyebrows raised to an almost unnatural degree and her jaw dropped.

"You weren't kidding when you said you were an actor," Luan said after he'd 'died' as Mercutio, his clawed hand on his forehead in the classic dramatic fashion.

He got to his feet, brushing the dust of his pants and then reaching up to try to get a few locks of his unruly curly hair out of his eyes. "Not so bad yourself."

And that was true. Juliet was a character that was well-known for jumping all around the emotional spectrum, being happy one moment and furious the next. But Luan's relentless energy and plethora of theatrical expressions meant that she could easily keep up with anything that was thrown at her. This resulted in an acting performance that was both admirable and adorable.

Luan flipped back a few pages in the script. "You mind trying the balcony scene? I feel like I always fall a little flat there."

"You need a Romeo?"

She nodded.

"Hang on, let me get into character." He fluffed up his hair so that it dramatically fell into his eyes again, and ruffled his jacket, trying to get an edgy, rugged look. "Oh no, my life is totally miserable and everyone hates me," he whined. "Surely the only logical thing to do is run away with my girlfriend, whom I just met three days ago, by the way. Can't think of any way this could possibly go wrong!"

Luan laughed. "Nailed it." She leaned forward in her chair to peer down at the script on the table. "So you're a Montague and I'm a Capulet. Huh." She shrugged. "Guess we're sworn enemies."

"Oooh," Benny and Luan said in sync, pointing their fingers menacingly at each other as though they were about to face off in a duel. They looked at each other and both burst out laughing.

"Okay, seriously," Luan said, her face instantly composed. She started to recite her lines and he picked up her script to follow along with the words in case she stumbled.

He kept up with the lines assigned to him, finding it easy to slip into the role. He was no stranger to Shakespearean plays, but besides that, he related well to the story about two people who came from such different places, but found so much in common with the other. He felt a connection, a pull, a calling, and he hoped Luan did, too.

"It is the east," he read, barely needing to look down at the script he held at all. "And Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art… far more fair than she…" His voice trailed off as he looked at Luan, his gaze meeting hers.

Once he did, his eyes were locked in place. It was impossible to look away when the sunlight from the tall windows behind them was drifting so perfectly across her face, casting one half in shadows and illuminating the other. The light cascaded down her neck, revealing that her hair wasn't a solid uniform brown, but held several distinct shades. A few blond strands gleamed as the sun's rays struck them, as though they were hidden threads of gold.

And the look in her eyes… there was probably a word for it, but Benny figured he'd need a thesaurus to figure out exactly what it was. Their amber color was gorgeous, truly fascinating, and the golden flecks within them that the sunlight revealed made them even more so. But what really struck him was that he'd never seen eyes hold so much intensity, and such intelligence, and yet they also looked so shy. So unsure.

What was his line again? He was supposed to be saying something and probably doing something too, but every time he tried to speak, his voice caught in his throat. He felt his pulse throbbing in his chest, could feel it in the artery in his neck, and could hear it ringing in his ears. He'd never been this aware of the sound of his own heartbeat.

How had she done this to him? He couldn't seem to find the answer. He couldn't even think, could only watch as she furrowed her brow in confusion, and then… was she blushing? Hard to tell.

She gaped at him for a few heartbeats more, then slowly slid out of her chair and walked across the broken stone floor. His eyes followed her movements as she walked up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. His face went hot, and he was acutely aware of how warm her touch was, as though she was made of the sunlight that had embraced her only a moment before.

However, all of these bizarre little half-thoughts and observations flew out of his head like startled birds as she roughly shook his shoulders, jarring him back into reality.

"Hello? Earth to Benny? Are you in there?" That was Luan's voice, which was a thing that she had, and also a thing that he had and was probably supposed to use. Right now, in fact.

"I-I'm fine. Just got lost in thought," he found the tongue to say. Words felt kind of funny.

"I thought you were having a stroke." Luan released his shoulders, but her worried eyes remained fixed on him. He wished she wouldn't do that. Her eyes were the cause of the problem.

"I'm okay, sorry. Let's continue?" he finished reading the segment of text, though he avoided looking at her as he did. This was especially difficult considering how the majority of the section was about a pair of gorgeous twinkly eyes and how much they resembled starlight. He was more than a little relieved when it was her turn to speak instead, and he could just listen in silence.

They continued working on her lines for another hour or two, but they both seemed much shyer, less focused on the task than they were before. Eventually she gave up, and soon after that, she started to pack her things, mumbling something about a tea party she wasn't supposed to be late for or else her sister Lola would mount her head on a spike and put it on display in the town citadel.

It wasn't until after she left and he stood in silence and shadows, glancing at the sunny spot where she'd once been sitting, that Benny realized what that word was that would've described Luan's eyes. And he shouldn't have needed a thesaurus at all.

Beautiful.

…

Luan walked briskly down the narrow cobblestone streets, pulling her cloak tightly around her shoulders as she felt a nip of cold breeze. She noticed that the leaves on the trees had started to change, shifting from their summery green shade into the bolder, more refined autumn hues of red and orange. The sun was well past its highest point in the sky; she'd stayed at the castle for longer than she'd intended to, once again. Lori was for sure going to kill her.

She couldn't help it, though. Benny was just so sweet and so caring and for sure the most hilarious person she'd ever met, though she was certain he didn't feel this way about himself. He had layers upon layers of shyness and insecurities, and everytime she caught a glimpse of the funny, confident boy underneath, it would vanish. This infuriated her in a way, because he had no reason she could see to hide anything from her. She didn't care much what he looked like, and she figured he knew that by now.

She vowed to herself that she would find a way to drag that confidence out of him and make it stick, and she was willing to risk Lori's wrath to do it. For reasons she couldn't quite explain.

Feelings were complicated things.

She took the scenic route back to the inn, brushing past rows and rows of uninspiring brown cottages and taverns that could really use a splash or two of vibrant color. Well past the hours of the early morning hustle, the town seemed slow and sluggish. The blacksmith was nailing a set of shoes onto one of the horses' feet, hay and ash scattered around the floor of his workshop. The chef was standing in the doorway of the bakery, halfheartedly stirring a bowl brimming with batter. A young woman was sitting calmly by the fountain and teaching some children to read, watched from above by a trio of water-spouting stone angels. Boring, boring, boring.

For a moment Luan considered switching the one of the horse's shoes for a clown shoe just to liven things up and give the uneventful town something to talk about, but she realized she just wasn't in the mood. She felt a little slow and sluggish, too.

She pulled open the wooden door to the inn, making her way through the tavern, past the only bathroom in the entire building, and up three flights of creaky stairs to her family's single room. The moment she stepped inside, she was immediately hit in the face with a flying pillow. Every single sleeping bag, blanket, and pillow had been gathered into the center of the room, providing endless ammunition for a pair of screaming squabblers.

Yep. The twins were at it again.

"Ew! Don't let that frog get anywhere near my face! It'll make it look all bloated and warty, and I cannot go on stage looking like a frog!" Lola said, hurling her pink lacy pillow at her sister. It bounced off Lana's nose and landed at her feet.

Lana threw her pillow, which was much less lacy and covered in more than a few mud stains, back at her twin, striking her square in the stomach. "Hops is just trying to show affection! And you wish you looked anywhere near as attractive as a frog!"

"You take that back! Everyone knows you're the ugly twin!"

Lola and Lana started to tussle on the floor, aiming punches at each other which all fortunately failed to hit the intended targets. A moment later Lori stepped in, picking up the bickering sisters and prying them apart.

"This again? Really? You two literally look the exact same! You're identical twins!" Lori gritted her teeth, obviously not in a good mood. Uh-oh.

"Speak for yourself," Lola said, dangling by her shirt collar, which was still gripped by Lori's left hand. Lana, who was currently hanging upside down, one of her shoes seized in Lori's right hand, glared at her.

However, the moment the oldest sister made eye contact with Luan, she dropped both twins, who crashed to the floor with two identical thuds. "Where the heck have you been?!" she demanded, her voice barely audible over all of the noise in the room. "You promised you'd wash the dishes today, and guess what? They're still dirty!"

As Luan opened her mouth to explain and apologize, since she had, in fact, forgotten all about that promise, Lori cut her off. "You know what? It doesn't matter. I have enough to deal with right now." A loud crash was heard in the background, and Lori's head snapped in the direction it had come from. "Luna! Horns are made for blowing, not throwing!"

Luan carefully made her way through the chaotic room, glad, and somewhat astonished, that Luna was now suffering the brunt of Lori's temper instead of her. She flinched as something lightly brushed against the back of her head, thinking it might be a spider, only to catch a glimpse of dark hair and realize that this was Lucy's version of an affectionate touch. As Luan turned to face her sister, Lucy fiddled with the collar of her lacy black Victorian-style dress. Lucy preferred to hide in the background, and was usually very shy, even around her siblings.

"Glad to see you're still alive. For now." Lucy didn't smile, but Luan knew her well enough to know that she was truly happy to see her older sister.

"Lucy, we've been over this. The Stone Castle is not dangerous."

Lucy scoffed in disbelief before vanishing just as inconspicuously as she'd arrived.

When Luan had come back from her first excursion to the mysterious castle, Lucy, the only one who'd even known she had left at all, had been quite surprised to see her turn up alive and in one piece on the way back. She'd told Lucy everything she knew about the castle, the curse, and the odd (but in a way, adorable) inhabitant that lived there, but Lucy still thought it was a bad idea to mess with any unknown evil magic, and refused to go anywhere near the castle. Neither of them had told the rest of the family, not seeing much of a reason when almost none of them noticed Luan's sudden disappearances. Both of their parents had taken on odd jobs to support the family in between shows, and during the day, many of the siblings would wander off on their own for a couple of hours. At the moment, Lynn and Leni were nowhere to be seen.

Luan still had a few questions about the castle, and to answer them, she needed to make one more Loud aware of her sneaky disappearing act.

Lisa was probably the busiest person in the entire family, other than Lori, who was always on her toes trying to keep everyone on task, and their parents, whom Luan barely saw at all since they were always working (Even though the inn only had one bathroom, rent was not cheap, especially for a family of thirteen).

Right now, Lisa's little corner desk was piled high with what had to be half a dozen inventions, a partially-done tax report, enough equations to make even an expert mathematician's head spin, and a beaker that looked about ready to explode. Between doing all of the family's special effects and finances, and trying to devote her life to academic pursuit and the betterment of mankind, Lisa barely ever had a moment to breathe.

Which definitely made Luan more than a little guilty about potentially adding even more to her sister's plate, especially knowing that whenever one of her family members had a question, Lisa would go out of her way to make sure it was answered. She'd lose sleep and occasionally her sanity in the process of discovery. That was simultaneously one of Luan's favorite and least favorite things about her.

After thinking it through for a moment more, Luan sidled up to her sister's desk, straining her ears to try to comprehend the seven-syllable words that were currently spewing from Lisa's mouth. As usual, Luan didn't understand any of them.

"Psst, Lis!" Luan whispered, trying not to draw the attention of any sneaky prying eyes.

Lisa didn't seem to hear her; she was still lost in her own little confusing world of algebra, physics, and words Luan hoped she'd never see on a spelling test.

"Lisa!" Luan whispered more forcefully.

Lisa's head jerked up in surprise and she looked around before meeting Luan's gaze. She squinted at Luan, her expression indicating that she was quite annoyed, through her enormous, thick-rimmed glasses. Luan had always thought that, despite Lisa's serious exterior, the big, round spectacles made her look exceptionally cute (Not that she'd ever tell her that, of course).

"Not now, fourth-eldest sibling. Might you at any point in time have seen that I am currently occupied? I have no time allotted for your tomfoolery and generally uncouth shenanigans."

Uncouth? Sure, Luan had had more than a few moments where she'd pranked the wrong person or made a pun at a very inappropriate time, but she wouldn't go so far as to define herself as uncouth. Ridiculous! She could be quite civilized if she wanted to.

"I have a question," Luan said, knowing that would most certainly get Lisa's attention.

"State your question. But I'm just going to make it known that if you attempt to humor me with one of your horrifically unamusing knock-knock jokes, I will personally hire Lori to kick your derriere clear to the moon." She raised a bored eyebrow and frowned. "And I won't even feel remorse over it."

"Do you know anything about curses?"

Lisa's eyebrows quirked up in surprise. Then her frown deepened. "Do you take me for a fool, Luan? Curses aren't real," she said flatly.

"Yes, they are!" Luan protested. At her sister's continued skepticism, Luan explained everything she knew about the Stone Castle from her books and from her field research. She found that she got a little distracted when she started to talk about Benny and all of the time she'd spent with him, getting to know the boy who looked scary and threatening on the outside, but was perfectly hilarious on the inside.

And today, when they'd been reading lines from the play and he'd said, "And Juliet is the sun," and he'd looked at her like she really was the sun-something bright and warm and beautiful.

No one had ever looked at Luan like that, something that was only made more clear when she was compared to Lori's composed elegance, or Leni's innocent beauty, or Luna's angelic voice, or even Lynn's rugged athleticism. She wasn't the type of girl people noticed, especially after her moments onstage in the spotlight were over and she was just another face in the crowd.

So the idea that she could be seen as something else, that she could be someone to somebody who really cared about her, well, she wasn't used to that sort of thing. It made her more than a little flustered. And flattered, in a way.

Wow. Feelings really were complicated things. And Luan was completely clueless about how to handle them. Comediennes like her were good at expressing and recognizing joy and excitement, but surprisingly awful at understanding the other emotions at times.

"Hmm." Lisa said as Luan finished speaking. "I'm going to need more evidence, and I'm genuinely astonished at the thought that I believe you at all. Which is only because while you have your clever moments, I sincerely doubt your ability to fabricate a tale as complicated as this." She studied Luan's face for a minute, absentmindedly drumming the tip of her pencil against the side of her head. "That's an interesting reaction. Your general facial area is becoming quite rubescent."

Luan furrowed her brow. "Come again?"

"You're blushing."

Dang it. Luan pulled up the hood of her cloak to hide her face, both bewildered and amused by the sensation on her cheeks.

…

Later that day, Lola and Lana left the inn, heading to the bakery in search of cookies. Lily had been having a tantrum for the past hour and a half, and despite Luna's most calming lullabies and Luan's cleverest puns, the youngest Loud wouldn't stop crying and screaming. After receiving a death threat from their downstairs neighbor, Lori had loaded the twins up with some pocket change and sent them out the door to retrieve the unhealthy, but surprisingly effective, solution: chocolate chip cookies, which were Lily's favorite.

It was getting late and the sun was starting to set, coloring the clouds interesting hues of orange and purple. The almost-autumn air was chilly, and both of the twins had started to shiver, standing close together to keep warm. All of the cottages and buildings looked exactly the same: long shadowy stretches of brown. The twins had been walking for a while, but the bakery was nowhere to be found. They probably should have brought a map.

"It's this way! I just know it!" Lana said, pointing her index finger in what appeared to Lola to be a completely random direction. Not that Lola had much of a clue about where to go. Six-year-olds were not the best navigators.

Lola shrugged and let Lana lead the way, darting nervous glances at the creepy, claw-like shadows cast by the trees as the sun continued to dip below the horizon. Normally, Lola wasn't afraid of much of anything, and could take down bullies many times her size. The dark made her anxious, though, and she worried about what might happen if they were out after dusk. She'd heard wolves howling last night, and once or twice she thought she'd even heard the piercing , jarring sound of someone screaming. She wanted nothing more right now than to bury herself in a mound of soft, lacy pillows, safe and warm in the embrace of silken blankets and all ten of her siblings.

But she and Lana had a job to do. Lori had trusted them, and she wasn't about to let her oldest sister down.

They walked leisurely down the street, trying to look for any familiar landmarks and kicking at any loose stones they came across. Lola shuddered, disgusted by the way dust clouded at their feet, while Lana had quite the opposite reaction: jumping around and trying to get as much of it to stick to her pants as possible.

"Ew!" Lola said as they walked into an alley. "How can you stand that stuff? It's dusty and musty and just plain…" She struggled to find the words to express how repulsed she was by the dirty street. "...Gross!"

"It's not that bad, Lols," Lana said. She squinted down the alleyway, observing with a frustrated groan that there was a brick wall at the end of it. "And I think we may have hit a dead end. Turns out I really don't know where we're go-"

A loud rustling, coupled by the sound of approaching voices, made both sisters freeze in place. They looked around anxiously at the dark, looming buildings, trying to locate the source of the sound. At one point they looked directly at each other, and Lola could see Lana's pupils dilate in fear. Lola had no doubt that hers were doing the same.

"Shh!" Lola said, forcefully pulling her sister behind a stack of crates to hide. The two clung to each other. Lola could feel Lana's heartbeat quicken, or maybe that was her own. By the light of the sun's last dying rays, Lola saw a pair of figures clad in black step into the alleyway.

"This seem like a good place?" one of the voices hissed.

"Not likely. But I'd give it a mark anyway. I've heard rumors saying the guy who lives here is hoarding a few bars of gold. And given the lack of intelligence I've seen in this part of town, it won't take much time for us to break in and give it a quick check."

"Nice," the first voice said, pulling out a piece of chalk and marking a strange white symbol next to the door of one of the buildings. "So for the big heist, you're thinking-"

"We surround them from all directions, demand all the valuables, and burn what's left. With our numbers, that'll be a piece of cake. A cinch."

Lana had started sniffling, and Lola's eyes widened in panic a moment before her twin sister sneezed. Playing around in the dust really hadn't been a smart thing to do.

Lana, you idiot! Lola thought, quivering in fear as the two men stopped to listen. After a minute, they approached the pile of crates. They each picked one of the wooden boxes up and hurled it into the alleyway, the splintering sound making Lola flinch. Two menacing-looking faces towered over the twin girls, so close that Lola could see the stubble dusting one of their chins.

"Well, what do you know?" The man with the stubble said, scowling. "A pair of little spies."

The second man said nothing, merely flicking a wickedly sharp dagger out of the hilt strapped to his sleeve. He stepped closer, holding the blade up to Lana's throat, close enough to graze the delicate skin of her neck. For a moment nobody moved, the only sound being that of Lana's panicked, shallow breaths.

Thinking fast, Lola leaped over the remaining crates, stomping her heeled foot forcefully on the stubbled man's toes. He shouted in pain and surprise.

"Run!" Lola cried, tugging at Lana's arm as the dagger-weilding man whirled around to face her. Lana said nothing, barely managing to keep up with her sister's frantic, hurried pace, her eyes streaming with terrified tears.

All of the yelling had stirred up quite a commotion, and several people in the alley had thrown open their doors and windows. The two men in black noticed this and bolted into an abandoned building to hide.

Lola saw this, but didn't pause. She kept running, Lana's trembling hand in hers, without even stopping to glance back to see what was happening in the alleyway or to check if anyone was following them.

It was only when they stumbled into the town square that Lola allowed herself to pause, catching her breath and trying to calm her still-racing heartbeat as she leaned on the stone fountain in the center of the square for support. She had no idea how to get back to the inn and she suspected that Lana didn't, either. All she could do was look around for someone she recognized, someone who could help her find her way. But there was no one out this late, not when the sun was gone from the sky and the first stars were starting to flicker into existence, peering out from in between the clouds.

Lola and Lana sat down on the fountain's rim, lost and cold and completely clueless about what to do and where to go next. The world around them was dark, and getting darker every minute. The thought of spending the night exposed in the street, especially after the danger they'd just experienced, made Lola want to scream.

Just as she'd given up all hope, a flash of bright yellow caught Lola's tired eyes. A voice-no, two voices-shouted something, but Lola couldn't quite make out what it was. She tugged on Lana's arm and pulled her towards the source of the bright color, until she recognized who the people were and took off running.

"We've been looking everywhere for you," Luna's soft, sweet voice whispered as she pulled the twins in for a hug. "Are you okay? We were worried sick about you, little dudes."

As someone else joined the hug, Lola recognized the texture and vibrant color of Luan's yellow cloak. Personally, Lola had always found it to be garish and out of style, but here in this moment, it was the most comforting garment she'd ever seen. It had led her out of the darkness and back into a world that was familiar and calm.

Lola's fear melted away in an instant. She felt protected and so very, very warm, letting her breathing slow. After a long while, she felt a sudden urge and tried to speak, tried to warn her older sisters about what she'd seen and what might be coming, but couldn't. Her words were stuck in her throat; she was still overcome with so many emotions.

She may have felt safe in her sisters' embrace, but the world seemed a lot more dangerous than it ever had before.

...

A/N: I know it took awhile for me to update, but I hope a longer chapter is enough to make up for that. Expect the next chapter to take a bit longer, too, since I'm going to be away for several days.

I just want to take some time to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who's been reading this little fanfic I've been writing, especially to those who've left reviews with commentary, support, and constructive critiques, all of which are important to any writer, and are highly appreciated by a bright-eyed noob like me. You've taken time out of your lives to leave some little notes for me, and since I'm pretty shy about letting people see the things I write, that means a lot to me. Thanks again! :)