I’ve been staring at this picture for 5 hours now,,, Super huge thank you to @katearcana for this amazing commission of Julian and Apprentice Plum! Kate really is super great and y’all should consider buying one of her ko-fi commission slots!!
7. “Is that blood?” “No?” “That’s not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question.”
This was, unequivocally, a terrible idea.
Never mind that she should have told him to get the hell out when she ran into him, somehow, just barely outside of the edge of the palace grounds, or that she probably should have asked for more of an explanation than the, “Uh… flowers for… Mazelinka?” answer he gave. She’s even willing to ignore the fact that he was skulking around the gardens in the dead of night like some kind of criminal (haha), but stumbling into the abandoned wing of the castle really is just plain stupid of the both of them.
She hadn’t actually been to this part of the building yet, since she’d come to the palace, and had actually been looking for a back entrance into the area, avoiding the weird dogs in the hall. A murder investigation is nothing without a crime scene analysis, after all, right? There had to be clues somewhere in there as to who or what killed the Count.
Nox just… wasn’t expecting one of the clues to be the convicted suspect wandering around like he was looking for something important.
The Count’s wing is dark when they finally manage to get into it–drafty and cold as the chill of death seemed to settle over every corner of the marble hall. Beside her, Julian is tense, drifting a little too close to her as she activates the flame rune on her palm. A little bit of warmth falls over them from the little ball of light, but the fire only pierces a little bit of the oppressive darkness around them. Beyond the circle of light, the dark is thick and almost pulsing, shifting as though there are creatures lurking just past their line of sight, ready to pounce.
“Well,” Nox breathes, pulling her hand away from her face when the flame shivers horribly, threatening to go out. “This is awful.”
“It’s… darker than I remember,” Julian replies just as softly, warm breath washing over her neck.
“That does happen when people stop taking care of parts of a building.” Or when someone has been murdered in cold blood, she thinks dryly.
Carefully, Nox takes a few steps forward, eyes locked on the wall of shadow in front of her, almost expecting something to jump out at her. The atmosphere in this part of the palace is almost alive.
Alive and hungry.
Behind her, Julian’s footsteps are nearly silent as they wander towards one side of the hall.
“Oh, god, the eyes.”
Nox turns away from the shadows reluctantly, looking up at Julian for an explanation and following his gaze to a line of portraits on the wall.
Every single one of them has had its eyes gouged out, thick, jagged claw marks on Count Lucio’s pretty face.
“I’m… going to assume that isn’t your handiwork?” Nox asks, and her voice shakes a little as she reaches up to trace her fingers across some of the scratches.
He mimics her movement, trying to match up his longer fingers to the claw marks–but even his hands aren’t big enough to match.
“What could have done this?” he murmurs, glancing down at her like he expects her to have all the answers.
She blinks. “Ohh, I don’t know. Angry poltergeists, restless spirits. A demon?” She lets out a shaky breath, shrugging. “I don’t think his freaky dogs could reach up there. Or make marks like that.”
Julian frowns, opens his mouth like he’s about to make some kind of complaint, and immediately pales when some kind of growling sounds from somewhere down the hall. It’s deep and low, almost moaning in the dark, and Julian and Nox find each other’s hands, panic settling uncomfortably somewhere just under the ribcage.
“Who’s there?” Nox manages to call after a beat, voice much steadier than her heartbeat in her chest. “Show yourself.”
Briefly, she wonders what she’ll do if it’s just some guards messing with her, how she’ll get Julian out and back to safety if they’re caught. Even with their shared memories and newly reformed friendship, Nox doesn’t think she’d be able to talk Nadia into letting him go if she managed to catch them down here.
Luckily, she doesn’t have worry about that, because there are no guards in this hall.
There’s only–a strange puddle of something dark, seeping towards them from the other end of the hall.
“Is that… blood?” Julian asks warily, hand tightening painfully around hers.
Nox takes a hesitant step forward, holding her free hand up to shine the light farther down the hall. The liquid shimmers with the warm light, but it doesn’t really look–red at all.
“…No?”
“That’s really not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question,” Julian hisses.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you!” Nox hisses right back, turning to glare up at him. “It’s–”
“Still making house calls, Jules?”
Whatever Nox had been about to say crumbles to dust in her head, as she and Julian stare at each other, both terrified to turn their heads and look to see who is talking.
Or, what is talking, Nox adds, hesitantly turning towards the sound.
At first, there’s nothing there, and her shoulders relax just a tad. Maybe it was just their imagination?
…Nope.
“Hello there, Nox. Do you remember me?”
A figure begins to form out of the murky shadow before them, starting from the strange puddle on the floor as though it’s rising straight out of it. In the back of her mind, Nox realizes that maybe that puddle really was blood. The presence fills the hallway, nearly suffocating with its overwhelming aura. It’s something white, she realizes as it becomes clearer.
The creature is hunched at first, its breath ragged and and loud in the quiet hallway. It lifts its head, and great horns swirl into existence from the darkness around it, long and sharp in the flickering orange light from the flame in her hand.
Glowing red eyes lock onto her face, and there’s some kind of laughter shining in those eyes. Stretching a single, clawed arm towards her, the voice speaks again.
“You should remember me. You look at my mark every day in the mirror.”
Her hand flies to her right cheek then, tracing over the long scars there. She’d always assumed that was from–something else, but… since she couldn’t remember…
The creature doesn’t get to get another word in, as Julian snatches her hand back and drags her back up the hallway and out into the night without another word. They barely pause to catch their breath, not even when they have to sneak around patrols, trying to find their way back into the city without getting caught and ending up in chains.
They’re panting when they finally slow to a stop in the slums, hands still intertwined. Nox vaguely recognizes their surroundings, and eying the alley where she knows the Rowdy Raven is in contemplatively, she sighs.
“Well. I think I need a drink.”
Julian laughs quietly at that, nodding in agreement. “Yes, that sounds–like just the thing. I’ll buy?”
“You had better be buying,” she grumbles, drifting closer to his side to bury her face in his jacket.
He’s still grinning when they get to the door, and the sight is so nice in the warm light of the tavern that she can almost pretend that she doesn’t still feel eyes on her back even now.
She refuses to look back as she lets the door fall shut behind them. Lucio will just have to find someone else to bother.
“You’ll be back. They always come back.”
Nox still hasn’t technically seen Lucio, if we’re going by the One Route Per Apprentice canon. I’m excited to see what they actually do for this in Julian’s route, but this was fun!
katearcana replied to your post “listen it would be really weird to kiss the devs’ asses, absolutely...”
a lot of it is bc they’re so accessible i think :/ it’s really a shame
admittedly it does put them in a weird position that comes with a lot of pitfalls? like as a content creator you have to walk a fine line when youre interacting with your own fans. on the other hand though.. this is what people always talked about wanting when it comes to content creators, and also. its literally 5 people. its 5 people doing this.
