Trust

Stay | 止まる

Kouen furrowed his brows.

"Do fairies have tails? There's never been any proof of fairies ever existing, let alone what their physical appearance would be like. This question seems irrelevant to this conversation, what is the purpose of this question, if you don't mind me asking."

Lucy looked at him, amused by his answer.

"No... it's nothing. Don't worry about it, I was just curious."

Kouen didn't look convinced but didn't press her further. He must still think Lucy will disappear again if he pries too deeply. "Alright. Care to answer my first question now: how do you keep disappearing and reappearing?"

"Ah, right. Well," Lucy thought back to the conversation she just had with Loke. With his help, she was able to figure an answer to the question she knew he would ask now that it's happened twice. Although it would only last for a while, it's still better than telling her entire life story to a random stranger she's only known for a few days.

"It has to do with my magic." Kouen was playing close attention now. "From what I understand, there are many types of magicians with different types of... styles, I think. I don't remember much, but I'm pretty sure my magic is the reason for it. If you would like, I can tell you as much as I remember, it won't be much though."

Even though she drifted off near the end, Kouen still looked intrigued, hanging off of her every word. Lucy didn't think what she said was that interesting—or even something that should be paid that much attention to. But to Kouen, it seemed to be a unique magic of some kind, paired with her mysterious appearance and amnesia, it only piqued his interest more.

"I would like that."

"Good," she smiled at him with a less than genuine smile. "Then would you be so kind as to provide me a place to stay for now? I will not be able to tell you anything about it if I don't have a place to stay. Who knows, I may end up leaving again if there is nowhere for me to return to." She said airily.

"I see." He once again narrowed his eyes, but this time, he looked mildly impressed with her. "I'm sure it can be arranged, Heartfilia-san."

"Please, just call me Lucy."

- - - - -

True to his word, he provided Lucy with a room. Or, well, he gave her his room. Kouen knew bringing an unidentified woman into his palace would be extremely suspicious and right now, he wanted to be the only one aware of her presence. The less others knew about her, the more time she had to answer his questions. Not only for himself, but if people knew he, for the first time, brought someone into the palace, she would certainly become the target for assassins and greedy nobles would try to get to him through her.

After searching through all of history and being close to getting answers to one of his biggest questions from the little Magi, she is the next thing that piques his interest. More so than many of the other things he's fixated on before.

So, he gave her his room and they started sharing it.

Although for the day it has been going on, it has just been him being gone for a while and she relaxing and looking around the room until he came back.

Frankly, Lucy is getting bored.

And on the second day, Lucy realized she was hungry.

Years of experience of going on jobs all over Fiore have desensitized her to feeling hungry, as she often had to ration her food or go for a day or two without eating during big fights. As such, it took her a whole day before she began realizing she was hungry—very hungry. Sniffing around the room, she noticed something smelling absolutely heavenly. Almost like a dog, she sniffed around the room, eventually making her way to the glassless window (another thing she noticed about this world; it doesn't use as much glass as hers does. Windows would be completely open and carriages would have clothes covering it.) and sticking her head out.

The closer she gets to the window, the better the smell gets.

With half her body completely outside the window, she sniffed the area around her, zeroing in on where it was strongest. Coming from a room a few halls down, she managed to figure out exactly where it was coming from.

It won't hurt if I take just a bit of their food, they won't even miss it...

Trying to make it seem like a good option to herself, Lucy kept trying to justify her going into (yet another) random strangers room to steal their amazing smelling food. Barely thinking about how morally right it is to do this, Lucy balanced herself on the ledge of the window, looking around to see if anyone was here.

Three guards spread evenly in the courtyard, plenty of trees to cover herself with but no other visitors or anyone who might recognize her from the boat. This makes this much easier then.

She quietly jumped down from the window and softly landed on top of a tree branch. Kneeling, she observed where the guards were and leaped into another tree out of their sight. Seeing as she managed to get halfway across the courtyard without being noticed, Lucy grew more confident. In one swift motion, she jumped down from the tree into a bush and then behind a large stone. Still unnoticed and almost fully out of the courtyard, she took a deep breath and sped as fast as she could between a wall and one of the guards, safely ending up hidden behind a wall in the hall where she smelt the food.

Really, she was able to get past them so easily, she was almost disappointed. If Capricorn were here, he surely would reprimand these guards for being so careless. In any case, he wasn't (physically) and Lucy managed to get even closer to the smell.

Sniffing the air again, she turned two corners, passed thirteen rooms and ran into a pole once before she arrived at where the smell was coming from.

Here. Getting excited at what the smell might be from, she stealthily moved around to the other side of the room and peaked into the window.

It didn't look like this room was a kitchen but that didn't really matter to her. What mattered was getting her hands on the deliciously laid out platter set mere inches away from here.

Throwing away all caution she originally had, Lucy jumped through the window, landing gracefully before the food.

She could almost feel her mouth watering with expectancy, barely holding back from devouring the entire thing. Even if no one else was around, she still had some class.

So, picking up the utensils with all the skill she learned through years of instructors and practice, she carefully sliced it into bite sized pieces.

Princess— Loke tried calling out to her. Unfortunately, she was too engrossed in the food to realize his repeated calls of her name.

It was only when she finished the entire plate did she finally look up and notice Loke's exasperated sigh in the back of her mind.

In front of her, for who knows how long, was Morgiana, Lucy thinks her name was, gaping at her and has been for who knows how long. Morgiana, to her credit, hid her expression quite well, Lucy would be unable to tell what she was thinking if she wasn't intentionally trying to read her.

On the outside, the two looked like they were peacefully looking at each other, Morgiana oblivious to Lucy's current severe internal panic and Lucy not realizing the curious looks Morgiana was sending her.

When a little more time passed and it appeared that no one was going to say anything, Morgiana cleared her throat.

"Was the food good?"

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A/N: eyyyy this counts and soon, right. Enjoy!