Entrapment ; {an Assassin's Creed Unity story}

New Beginnings, Familiar Comforts

The more favourable areas of Versailles were the pictures of comfortable opulence; high white buildings with blue slate roofs, pretty shuttered windows- occupied by minds who had little to worry about when it came to where the next meal was coming from.

One such inhabitant was Lucille Fontaine, the daughter of the wealthy and well-respected accountant, Henry Fontaine. Monsieur Fontaine had many an affluent client; but none with as much grandeur and power to the name as the De La Serre family.

All throughout her life, all Lucille had known was the beauty of Paris through the rose tinted lenses of wealth - family trips away to the coastal villas, long sprawling summer evenings with plentiful food and great parties. She knew nothing much of the real world - she had been happy to while away her time as a child in the company of De La Serre's daughter, Élise, and sometimes young Arno, if the boy happened to be bored and fancy a game of chase in the gardens with the two girls. That's all life had been for Lucille; fun and games and frivolity.

Nothing much had changed as the young woman transitioned into adulthood, a twenty year old woman with the same carefree lifestyle as that of a pampered lap cat - yet the experience failed to make her all too pompous or snooty.

Lucille was kind of heart, intelligent to say the least. She used all the free time her plentiful lifestyle had given her to enjoy the richer things - by that, she deemed the arts. Reading and writing and enriching her mind were worth far more than the most beautiful jewels in Paris.

"Lucille, will you put that book down for a moment, please?" Her mother, Charlotte, groaned with the impatience of a woman dealing with a toddler.

In the plush expanse of her bedroom quarters, Lucille sat nestled on her windowseat- eyes fixated to a certain gripping romance novel whilst her dear mother laid out several dresses on the bed - the gowns acquired earlier this week in anticipation of the largest social event of Lucille's year so far. Élise's initiation ball.

Flickering her hazel eyes up from the page, Lucille only had to see a flash of a cornflower blue colour before she made up her mind.

"The blue gown will do nicely, mama." She was quick to respond, wetting the tip of her index finger and turning the page with careful consideration of the beautiful words and story that had been immersing her beyond focusing on anything else.

Charlotte griped under her breath, settling her tired eyes on her daughter - all beauty and grace and seeming not to care at all about her future and destiny to be a wife and a mother.

Lucille went on, unbeknownst, her back to the sunlit window in her delicate sage green dress - an inelaborate piece comfortable enough to wear around the home but still immensely beautiful to any poor soul in Paris who had seen the strife of poverty.

"Cant you see how important this is, mon enfant?" Charlotte stated, picking out the blue dress as questioned and gazing at it somewhat critically. "This could be so good for you. You have yet to find yourself a suitor, this party could be the perfect place to put yourself out there, non?"

Lucille involuntarily shuddered at the mention of a suitor, and clenched her jaw tightly as her eyes continued across the page. As much as she enjoyed the fun and dancing offered at parties, her recent transition into a young woman caused her to recoil from the thought of attending them. Suddenly happy conversations with men all had to have some hidden meaning - and she was tired of the many young suitors rushing to her, all fighting to brag the loudest and boast the hardest about their small feats. It was frankly embarrassing.

"Mama, you know I'm in no rush..." Lucille replied nonchalantly, feeling a disapproving look burn against her skin from her mother's discerning gaze.

"Mon dieu , Lucille!" Charlotte sighed with laboured intensity, dropping the blue dress back to the bed with an angered notion. "You are already racing far past the ideal marrying age, and soon you may as well count yourself past your ripest stage."

Lucille looked up at her mother with questioning eyes, watching as Charlotte's jaw shifted uncomfortable - a mother clearly troubled as to why her daughter wasn't following the norms.

"You... you may as well class yourself as spoiled fruit." She uttered the words with some bitterness, her own hopes and dreams of seeing her daughter marry a good man and produce a family dwindling on the horizon, it seemed.

Snapping the book shut quickly, Lucille creased a frown at her mother's frankly hurtful and untrue feeling words.

"If I happen to turn into a rotten apple I shall let you know, mama." She snapped, getting up from the window seat quickly and tossing the book onto the nearest dresser-top.

"Until then, who has to say I have to rush and marry off to someone who I do not love? It seems so far I haven't exactly come across a man interesting enough to peak my attention." She muttered, thinking about the suitors with their useless chatter, their small brains thinking bragging about their family's wealth meant anything to her. It was all hot air and wasted time to Lucille.

"Besides," the girl continued, pacing to the end of the bed at her mother's side, her eyes more closely attentive to the details on her chosen blue evening gown. "I imagine all the suitors in France will be after Élise tonight, she is the star of the show." Lucille pondered, tracing her fingertips lightly over the ornate lace panel detail on the front of the dress, her dark brunette curls tumbling over her shoulders as she drank in the details of the fine blue dress which would suit her nicely for the party.

Charlotte huffed quietly at her daughter, a roll of her eyes at the tedious words.

"It does not mean you should attend with a negative mind." She pressed her daughter, stepping back across the room. "I will make arrangements for the maids to help you get ready for the party this evening, at least the hardest job of picking your gown is out of the way." The woman sounded frankly relieved, she knew how challenging it could be as of late to peel her daughter's eyes out of a book.

"Oui, mama." Lucille responded with a lacking tone, already expecting very little of the evening to come.