Entrapment ; {an Assassin's Creed Unity story}

The Ghosts of Our Pasts

Her dressing room felt akin to that of a minute prison cell, as the various maids of the household flustered around the young Miss Fontaine, fingertips tightening corset strings and and fumbling with petticoats.

Lucille drew in a deep breath as she stared at herself in the mirror, for once her constricted feeling was not due to the tight embrace of the corset - but more her own anxieties of the evening ahead. Parties never used to make her feel like this, but her mother's harsh words from earlier were beginning to sting like a snake bite. Was time really running out?

The thought lingered unpleasantly as the young woman sat at her vanity table, her lady in waiting fixing her hair into a beautiful half up half down cascade of dark curls, the few escaping strands framing her cherub-like face perfectly - not too dissimilar from a painting one might find in a palace.

Jewels of the highest value adorned Lucille's neck, a status symbol of many things - of her father's achievement and affiliation with the most wealthy of Paris. Lucille often felt the jewellery acted as some kind of sweet honey to the buzzing bluebottle-like suitors, all pestering and garbling for her attention. As happy as Lucille was for Élise's party (a ceremony held, as Lucille understood it, for Élise following in the footsteps of her father's secretive business), the young woman found herself not wanting to attend with each passing second.

But alas, the hours passed and the evening drew into night - sunset hues of the dying day succumbed to the heavy dark blue of night, stars littering the sky as Lucille followed her mother and father into the red and gold gilded carriage outside, pulled by two fine black Friesian horses with their silky manes and defined, strong conformation.

As the carriage wheels rumbled over the cobbles, bound for the palace of Versailles, Lucille found herself bundled in her thoughts - a silent figure staring out of the window as her parents chatted quietly opposite.

"I hear it will be quite the turnout tonight, Lucille." Henry announced to his daughter, offering a hopeful smile. The man had always been much softer on his daughter than his wife, he saw a sensitive young woman with a good heart and a smart brain - and as much as he too wanted her to find a suitor, he didn't want to force it as much as his wife did.

"Quite." Lucille uttered in response, sighing when she realised her bluntness. "Sorry, papa. I don't quite feel in the party mood tonight." She added soon after, her gut wrenching as their destination came ever closer.

"Well I'm most certain Élise will be pleased to see you, my dear." He returned, as Lucille sighed and turned back to the window, listening to her parents converse quietly.

"What of that Dorian boy, is he attending tonight? I always thought he was trouble." Charlotte queried her husband, and Lucille's mind suddenly flickered to Arno. She hadn't seen him properly in a very long time. She usually mostly met with the De La Serre's at functions, or went to tea with Élise alone. Arno was hardly ever in tow, and it occurred to the Fontaine daughter that she hadn't seen Arno in years, she wondered whether he would be in attendance - it would be nice to see him.

"I highly doubt it," Lucille's father returned, "you know how François feels about him sometimes - Arno isn't exactly good at mixing with high society, and what not." He concluded, with a slight awkward cough.

Lucille stifled a smile, clearly nothing had changed then. Arno was always slightly awkward, clumsy as a child but in a funny and rather delightful way. He often said what was on his mind, with little filter or respect for anyone else's opinion around him. You hoped that aspect of him hadn't changed, he was almost always saying what you were thinking about the people at parties you used to attend as teenagers.

The sound of fireworks crackling in the night sky further averted Lucille's train of thought, and the shimmers of red and blue that decorated the skies further reiterated the fact they were nearing the palace.