Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

100 - Chapter C: A Token of Courtship

Two weeks later.

A cock crowed.

The sound giving Reinette pause.

For she was not used to it yet.

The proximity of this hellish creature that seemed to crow at all hours, regardless of whether the sun was rising or not, she thought. Allowing herself to lie there for another breath before pulling herself up. Quickly changing into her clothes for the night: the plain shirt, skirt, and kerchief. Finding her shoes. Running a comb through her hair. Then taking the time to make the bed.

The large bed.

Which she slept in alone. Primarily because two weeks ago, Lucian had unilaterally decided that as part of starting again, he needed to start remembering...everything. Every insult. Every cruel word. Every moment when he made her feel small. In short, if he had purposefully forgotten about it, then he damned well was going to purposefully remember it.

And atone for it.

For her sake.

As he had explained on the first evening after the walk. Not just his withdrawal cruelty...or his subsequent apology...

...but everything.

Starting with his first months of disturbing horrible behaviour prior to locking her up in a catacomb. Cresting through his fourteen years of oftentimes careless affection before he sold her to a Northern den. And finally culminating in four years of youth, during which he ignored her, punished her for wearing a dress and then ravished her in a filthy setting, wages not included. Things that she had long since moved on from...

...leaving her at a loss.

Like she was standing on a peak, watching him fall down a mountain they had just climbed. As though he did not believe he deserved to stand by her side.

Despite having kissed her in such an enticingly chaste way. Making it seem almost as thrilling as his cock driving into her. Giving her the strangest sensation of...contentment. As though being ravished in his forge could be just as fulfilling as lying in a field for two hours, enjoying each other's company, both with and without a stick. Realising that in a mere twenty-four hours, she had now held his hand for longer than she had during the entirety of the past twenty-four years...

...and yet, despite all of that, he had now become an incarnation of shame. Choosing not to take her on a walk again, but instead disappearing into his room for forty-eight hours...only to come back, looking as though he'd been through hell. This was immediately followed by a wave of apologies.

For things that had happened...

...twenty-four years ago.

He apologised for her awakening. Her lost memories. Purchasing her. Selling her. Frightening her. Leaving her. The countless times when he had vomited on her shoes. The apologies continuing for a full three days...and then concluding spectacularly with a shame-filled evening where he sat beside her, staring at nothing...

...and then abruptly gathered his single box of belongings so he could sleep in the upstairs loft-directly on the floor, she could only assume. Like he was afraid to even touch her now. Avoiding her eyes, face, hands, and person. Seeming to think he was a complete and utter failure in life who again needed to be sequestered so as to avoid doing any further damage.

Naturally, she found it profoundly irritating.

And it was not fine, she'd finally realised.

Shaking out the blanket.