Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

98 - Chapter XCVIII: The Winter Before Spring

Unfortunately, the feeling did not last.

Their earlier journey one of ebbs and flows, and their welcome taking on a similar quality as soon as they passed its threshold. Like the others, her dress had already been confiscated. All of them handed new clothing, directed to change quickly in the back of the lorry, before they were allowed to walk to the light. A landscape of spread out buildings, housing equipment and sheep, by the smell.

The farmhouse plain in its interior, but shortly revealing itself to be the entrance to something more. Their mysterious host, Sabas, entering one of the bedrooms, opening an oaken box-bed and pushing against the interior of its back wall.

Her instincts piqued as a wooden panel opened. Large enough to climb through but making her less certain about the stretcher. But they seemed to have it in hand now. His people. And not for the first time did she feel the weight of her species.

That she ought to step back. Allow them to take him. To handle all that was separate when it came to the Change. The destruction and pain that came with a monthly cycle. The fear of discovery.

Yet she felt...

...naive suddenly.

That she had not noticed it before.

How dangerous it was for lycans to travel. Particularly with one who was unconscious. Realising as she watched them carry him into the farmhouse...that her powers of observation were starting to slip. Yet in truth, how could she have noticed it, she decided. The blankets constantly covering his clothing...and even his moments of wakefulness orchestrated, however begrudgingly by Singe, once it became apparent—as he explained to their next Line-runner—that keeping them locked up throughout the night and day in a moving train compartment was not sustainable if four of them needed to relieve themselves and one of them could not do so without help.

Naturally, the first time Lucian vomited had led their party to start preemptively arranging these moments of respite with their handlers. That and the fact that, unconscious most of the time, Lucian had clearly—for she had been the one to notice it first, despite being surrounded by lycans whose noses ought to have picked up on the dilemma—started to soil himself by the second day of the journey.

Something which she had once thought would trouble her, but which honestly, she no longer cared about, given that the only thing between her and burning to death was a wooden train compartment door, a series of poorly aligned slats, and the hope that they had not been sold out during every leg of the journey.

In any case, Singe and Rena had handled it all. Requested new clothing, bedding, and blankets during their next stop, and then for the rest of their journey, arranged to wake and clean him as necessary. And on occasion, in her moments of staring at envelopes in the dark, she had watched them in their efforts, The two of them, used to this kind of travel, taking him, stumbling and half-conscious, outside the compartment once a day for a brief time to relieve himself...

...while Sabine, not used to such travel, chose to handle the situation admirably by refusing to use the available facilities, having a signed argument with Rena, looking as though she were about to say things out loud—in a place where they could not speak—before finally wrapping herself violently in an air of bitterness before using the damned bucket. One could only wonder at where the girl had learned such behaviour.

Though it occurred to her now that, bodily functions aside, she could have done more to assist them. But it was not in her nature. Her instincts selfish in that moment, choosing instead to ignore the smells, sounds, and anything remotely connected to bodily functions, so she could sleep while the affected parties handled the situation. The amount of available blood limited to a daily ration which only gave her so much energy when all was said and done.