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connan-l · 2 years

Text

Fiore Cadavere

Fandom: The House in Fata Morgana

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship: Jacopo Bearzatti & Morgana

Summary: Trying to take care of this traumatized little girl he saved turned out trickier than Jacopo had expected, especially with his own doubts getting in the way. So when she suddenly decide to disappear out of the blue one day, things become even more complicated.

Content Warnings: Requiem oblige, there’s mentions of prostitution (and underage prostitution given Maria is still 17 at this point) and of past child abuse/torture because of Morgana. Some mild descriptions of corpses as well I guess.

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Link on Archive of Our Own

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The girl was still bundled up in there when he stepped inside.

The only anomaly to his routine lately, he thought with a bitter smile as the strong perfumes of the brothel piqued his nostrils and made him grimace instinctively; it was something he’d never entirely accommodated to, even after all those years.

Last room on the right, all at the bottom. That was where she’d taken shelter in for the past ten days since he’d first brought her here. She basically spent most of her days in there, refusing to interact with any of the girls as if they were lepers and not putting a single toe outside. At this point, most of the women had given up on the kid except for the really kind-hearted and patient ones like Iris who’d occasionally come to check on her, but if it wasn’t for him coming in every day to bring her the ointment and her meals he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d just let herself die of hunger.

That girl — Morgana, right, she’d told him her name was Morgana — was committed on being a pain in the ass to everyone, it seemed. And, admittedly, it worked; Jacopo wasn’t really sure what to do with her anymore.

It’s barely been two weeks, he tried to reason with himself. And she’s a child who has been through hell. Just give her time. But a small, vicious voice, that could sounds either like Maria or Gratien or the goddamn lord himself depending on the circumstances, would in turn whisper in his ear that he would’ve done better to let her die during the uprising at the manor.

Even if it was slightly better than the first day he’d talked to her, she still seemed so determined to stop living. He wondered if trying to tire him out and force him to let her die was her end goal. That would be twisted, but then again, the words she’d told him when she’d woken up back then still plagued his mind.

“Would you… please kill me…?”

His blood boiled just remembering it, and he gripped his own fist tightly as he stopped in front of her room’s door.

Like hell I will.

“Morgana? Hey?”

He knocked once, twice. Then once again louder when he got no answer.

“…Who is it?”

A barely audible voice finally leaked through the wood, and he sighed. Which man could come to visit her besides him?

“It’s me, Jacopo?”

“…Who?”

“Oh come on, don’t screw with me! You should know my name by now. I’m the guy who bring you food every day!”

“Ah… the slave man.”

Jacopo tried not to let her odd insistence on never saying his name get under his skin.

She’s just a kid, he repeated again in his head, a recitation he’d learned by heart ever since he’d met her. Don’t get mad. Don’t get mad.

“Can I come in?” He asked, controlling his voice as much as he could. However after being given the silent treatment yet again for quite some time, he grumbled and couldn’t help but speak more forcefully. “Morgana.”

“It’s open.”

Jacopo sighed, then finally penetrated inside the room. Morgana was there alright; curled up on herself in a corner of the bed, all wrapped up in the blanket and that black cloak that she never let go of nowadays. She pulled her hood over face at his entrance, as if trying to hide herself even more than she already was. Jacopo couldn’t bring himself to understand why she persisted in wearing this large, cumbersome thing even inside; it really was as if she was trying to dissimulate her presence as much as possible from any pair of eyes that would dare to be too curious to stare at her. Though, knowing her, it very much could be the case, as she definitely always seemed to run away from any kind of visual contact. Shaking his head in disbelief, he decided not to comment on it as he was aware enough it’d only make things worse, and simply put the plate of food on the mattress.

“You know, you really should just start going to the kitchen all by yourself to eat,” he said instead while sitting down — far away from her so that she didn’t feel too threatened. “The girls won’t mind if you ask them nicely to share meals with them.”

Morgana eyed the bowl of pottage quietly for a moment, as if she feared it could be poisoned, and then slowly reached for it. Without looking at him and all while grabbing her spoon, she just mumbled back a sentence that sounded like, “You’re saying… I should go share my meals with these vile sinners?”

Jacopo sighed again, which was now a pretty regular occurrence in each of his interactions with Morgana. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Do you intent to keep insulting them for long like that? In case you forgot, may I remind you that those ‘vile sinners’ are the ones sheltering you for free right now. You don’t have to like their jobs, but is that really too much to ask that you talk to them like human beings? I’m pretty sure that ‘treating your benefactors like trash’ isn’t featured in the Bible.”

The girl said nothing, simply chewing on her bread in silence like a small mouse. The way she would simply fell silent whenever he made her notice she was being disrespectful made him think that maybe she did realize her behavior was uncalled for, but then again she still didn’t seem to make any effort to interact with the other women or just to stop calling them sinners.

Maria had said it’d take at least three years of work to get through to her. He’d originally been fine with the perspective of taking responsibility for saving her and taking care of her, but… Sometimes, he still couldn’t help but ponder if he’d truly be able to do something like this for such a long time.

“Well, whatever. Finish your meal and then I’ll take care of the ointment.”

As soon as she heard the word ‘ointment,’ the kid instantly tensed up, stopped eating and raised her eyes towards him fearfully. This was also another irritating behavior that he tried his best to not be irritated about. He’d come to put ointment on her for as long as she’d been here, every days, and yet she still reacted like that when he mentioned it. Sure, it had only been ten days — but certainly by now she should be aware he wouldn’t harm her, right?

“Christ, Morgana. Again, I won’t do anything you won’t like — it’s just putting the ointment on you. Nothing more. You should know that by now.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“No, but I want to, so I will. We are not having this conversation again.”

“It’s just useless. You should stop.”

Her dry way of speaking — a bit firmer than usual — stopped him in his tracks for a moment. Was she really still talking about just the ointment… or about herself in general? Maybe there truly was a part of her who was trying to be as unbearable as possible so that he’d eventually give up on her.

If Gratien or Maria were there, they’d most definitely tell him he should do so already — no point in trying to help someone who didn’t want to be helped. And in a way, they weren’t wrong, but…

He shook his head, trying to get rid of these thoughts. “…Oh, yeah. By the way, I wanted to ask you something… Erm, so you see, there’s this guy at the pub… um, a pretty nice dude; he often comes hang with us, and he helped during the riot at the manor too. Well, that guy, he has two daughters around your age — ten and eight years old.”

Morgana aimed inquisitive, suspicious eyes at him; he’d learned to recognize by now that it was the kind of warning gaze she used whenever he would say something she found particularly unpleasant and wanted him to shut up, but that didn’t deflate him to continue.

“I’ve talked with them a few times, and they’re really kind, cute girls. From time to time, they go out together with a few of their friends to play in the hills, collect plants and whatever so— well, what I’m saying is that, I’ve asked them yesterday if they’d be okay if another new girl joined them, so that they could show you around a bit and all, and they seemed really enthusiastic about it. So, what do you think?”

“You’re asking me to… join them? For what?”

“Huh? W-Well, you know… Play around… doing kids stuff? I don’t know, just, to have fun together. It’d be good if you could start making friends with other children—”

“I have no interest in things like ‘playing around,’ or in making friends with other children.”

Jacopo groaned. He had expected this type of answer, yes, but that didn’t mean it was any less annoying to actually hear it.

“Why do you just refuse to make any effort?” He let out in a frustrated voice before he could monitor his tone. “Making friends is a good thing, it’s not like I’m forcing you to do chores. Didn’t you have… um, well, friends, where you lived before?”

“No.”

This time, he actually hadn’t expected this type of answer. “Huh? Wait, really? Oh, come on, that can’t be true. I’m sure there must’ve been at least some, right? Kids you hanged around with?”

“There was none.”

“…Okay… Well, even if you didn’t have any back then, you can’t stay all the time on your own now, and I’m sure you must be bored to only be around people who are all older than you. You should find yourself some hobby too, instead of staying locked up inside all day. You know, if you’d just—”

“Stop that.”

Her voice rose; the spoon tinkled inside the bowl. Not quite a shout, per se — but still very loud for her standards, and it was so surprising for her to do something like that that Jacopo shut it up instantly, frozen in amazement. Golden eyes left the half-finished soup, and for once, hesitantly crossed his own willingly.

“Stop… deciding things for me… what you think is best for me… stop it. You… know nothing about me.”

A pregnant silence fell between them. They stared at each for some time, before Morgana finally gave in first and dropped off her eyes inside her bowl again. She didn’t seem to want to eat anymore, though, as she pushed the plate away from her; her fingers starting to play nervously with a pan of her robe.

Stiff shoulders, chin hanging down, fidgeting hands, a dodgy expression; those were all signs Jacopo knew very intimately — a collection of symptoms that he was a connoisseur of.

The body language of a child he’d known when he was younger; when he’d only just arrived to this town after running all by himself for days and days; after having been just barely saved by Maria — the language of a weak kid who was fearful of everything and would become cagey about any questions concerning his past, concerning himself.

That child who ran away and desperately tried to avoid people and hide from the stares was no more now.

He’d made sure of it — had buried him deep inside him, locked him away in a small box, destroyed his very existence.

Never would he have thought to see him again now, right in front of him, in the form of a young girl with red hair and skin scattered in scars.

“Sorry…”

There was a sigh, and then a head scratch.

“I’m… sorry, really.”

I’m sorry I can’t help you.

I’m sorry you gave up on living.

He didn’t say those parts out loud, of course. She wouldn’t hear it, wouldn’t understand it — just like he hadn’t when he had been like her.

Morgana didn’t react, and Jacopo knew that he wouldn’t hear a single word from her anymore for the rest of the day at least. He’d be lucky if she even allowed herself to speak to him again tomorrow. So, he simply took the plate of food and the ointment, departed from the room and closed the door behind him.

For as much she could be frustrating, he knew he had been her, once — but he just wasn’t sure if he’d be able to help her out the way he’d helped himself.

________________________________________________________________

There was too much noise.

Morgana’s head felt like it was going to explode. She pulled on her hood avidly, as if doing so could somehow protect her from the overwhelming sounds and people that surrounded her. She’d never been good at dealing with crowds, even back at her village — and her village had been pretty small — but now it just felt even worse somehow.

Ever since she escaped, it felt like if she closed her eyes she would just be back at the lord’s manor; hearing the nobles laugh and watch her bleed on the altar like hawks as they gawked and stuffed themselves up.

The memories made her dizzy, then nauseous, and instantly triggered her instinct to flight — but at this moment an adult’s hand grabbed her own, gently but firmly, and when she raised her head she saw a woman with black locks smiling at her lovingly, her dark eyes shining with concern.

“Are you okay, Morgana? If you feel bad you can just tell me, okay? I promise it won’t be much longer…”

The woman’s voice was very kind, but it somehow only managed to irk Morgana even more. She slapped her hand away and tightly grasped her cloak instead, looking down at the ground — hoping her hood would dissimulate as much of her face as possible. She couldn’t see the woman’s reaction to her rejection, but she could hear Maria snort from behind.

“Just leave the brat be, Iris. Honestly, I’m starting to regret we brought her along. Maybe we should just ‘accidentally’ lose her somewhere on the way or something.”

“Maria!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking! Jacopo would skin me alive if I ever did that.”

I never asked to be here, Morgana almost replied bitterly, but bit down her tongue at the last moment.

They’d needed to go out to buy a few things, apparently, and usually it would’ve been none of Morgana’s business and she would’ve just stayed locked up in her dedicated room. But Iris had showed up and asked her if she wanted to come, to ‘get some fresh air’ or something, and before she could say anything Maria had jumped on the occasion to push on the idea. Her argument, however, wasn’t that Morgana needed fresh her, but that given she was just a freeloader, the bare minimum she could do was help out with the chores like taking care of the shopping.

Morgana had tried to refuse, she really did. But that blond girl was just as stubborn as her, and she kept insisting, and… and, well. Admittedly, she had to admit she was kind of right. These… women had lent a roof over her head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat, while Morgana could give them nothing in return. She still would never approve of these their sinful lifestyles, but… she did feel guilty. If she could just reveal her real identity as a saint then she probably could use her blood as a way to repay them, but…

She just couldn’t. The idea of slicing up her skin like before, of just revealing her lineage brought back memories of the lord, of how she’d been used like an entertaining object, and with this all the sickening, disgusting feelings that were associated with him.

She should just leave the brothel. Run away from here, live on her own. The twelve days she’d been living there had already been too much.

But whenever she tried to gather her courage to do just that, she always ended up desisting herself at the last minute.

She didn’t know why, but she just couldn’t leave.

The fear of the unknown, the dread of not having any home, any future, anyone to count on anymore overwhelmed her, and then her thoughts just went back to what the slave man had told her about his hometown and of the possibility of them being family and—

How ridiculous.

She truly had now become the most disgraced, cowardly being on this earth.

“Anyway, what do we have left again?” Maria declared, sighing heavily as she ran her hand through her short hair. “Not sure we’ll find the rest around here… Should we just try to go to the city proper for once?”

“We’ll never be able to afford it in the city proper,” Iris intervened. “I think that—”

“Guards! Guards!”

“The guards are here!”

The people in the street suddenly began to get agitated, a few of them running away in smaller, darker alleys, as if they searched to hide. Maria and Iris instantly tensed up, but Morgana didn’t really understand what all this turmoil was about until she noticed a few horses trotting on the paved road, with on top of them men in what looked like heavy, metallic armors.

Guards. In her mind, guards were representatives of justice and goodness, loyally serving and protecting citizens, so she had no idea why everyone here seemed so panicked at the sight of them or why Iris suddenly gripped her hand once again in a protective manner.

It was as if… they were suspicious of them. Fearful. And then her blood went cold. It was only when this thought crossed her mind that she remembered…

Before serving and protecting citizens, those guards were first and foremost serving the lord. A shiver ran through her, and despite how callously she’d rejected Iris just a little while back, she now grabbed her long skirt tightly.

The men, up high on their horses, entirely engulfed in robust silver plates and with long swords hanging at their belts, looked incredibly imposing and intimidating as they surveyed the street and the people there. Then, the gaze of one of them stopped when he saw Iris and Maria, and directed his horse towards them. The blond-haired girl’s face instantly hardened, while the older woman nervously bit her lower lip before shoving Morgana behind her back.

“Well, now… Look who we have here,” one of the guards declared. “If it isn’t last time’s whores. What are your names again?”

“Since when do you fuckers care about the names of some rat slums?”

Maria replied sharply, her hand on her hip and her eyes glaring at the guard without an ounce of fear. Iris grimaced, but the man only chuckled, manifestly indifferent at the girl’s impudence.

“Cocky as always, huh.”

“Um… may I ask, why are you here?” Iris hesitantly tried, a very clear ‘you never come here’ accompanying the rest of her question.

“A few days ago, there was a slave revolt at the mansion of the lord. A revolt induced by people of the city. Lord Barnier wants us to find the instigators… But I believe you already know all of that, don’t you?”

“Hah. And of course, the first place you come to for that are the slums, huh?”

“It is always you guys who causes the most problems, so can you blame us for being suspicious?”

“And why don’t you start asking yourself why, exactly, do we fucking ‘causes problems,’ huh?”

“I-I am sorry to hear about what happened,” Iris cut in, trying to calm down the growing tension between the men and Maria. “But, um, neither I nor my friends know anything about that.”

“That, you see, I have troubles to believe. You all always know everything about each other, so I definitely think you must be aware of at least a few of those criminals. The lord is certain some of you are behind this.”

“Then why doesn’t the great Lord Barnier come to see us himself, hmm? Or maybe is he too afraid of a handful of slums rats for that?”

This definitely seemed like the one sentence too many. Iris gasped an anxious ‘Maria!’ through her teeth, and the guard leaned on his horse, fiercely glaring down at the women. Morgana only tried to bury herself even more inside her hood, erasing her presence as much as she could behind the two prostitutes.

“You better be careful, whore,” the man hissed menacingly. “Next time, the lord won’t be as forgiving.”

“Bring it on,” Maria replied back dryly without hesitation, a muffled anger vibrating through her voice.

The man snorted, then to Morgana’s surprised and relief, he actually straightened up, patted his horse, and finally he and his men turned around and walked away, not without throwing a last glare in their direction. It wasn’t until they disappeared at the corner of the street that the tension created by their arrival dissolved, and that the people of the district seemed to start breathing again. Iris, however, didn’t appear relieved in the slightest and instead grabbed Maria’s arm in an uncharacteristic mild anger.

“What on earth were you thinking by trying to provoke him like that, Maria? You realize how wrong this could’ve turned out?”

“It’s fine. They were just here as a warning, they wouldn’t have done anything unless they were sure we were connected to the revolt.”

“But you don’t know that! Honestly, you sounds like Jacopo! What if they tell the lord and he finally decides to take some drastic measures against the slums?”

“I don’t think some random whore being kind of rude to one of his guards is what will end up ticking off that guy,” Maria replied, shrugging. “And I get mad sometimes too. Okay, listen, I know we have to play it safe, but there’s a difference between this and actually creating a riot at the manor like the other dumbasses did. And the lord can’t bring himself to anger the people living in the city proper either, which by now could happen any time if he takes some measures too extreme. Like I said, in the end he’s just a fuckin’ coward afraid of us.”

“He is not afraid.”

“Huh?”

The words escaped Morgana’s mouth before she could even think about them; as if the mention of the lord had instinctively unlocked her voice, awakening a force that allowed her to speak up from behind Iris’ skirt when she would’ve never done so under normal circumstances.

The man’s deranged, black eyes — standing large and imposing in his sumptuous, shining clothing and jewels — were still burned in her mind; and even now, when she was so far away from him, she still felt like his gaze was burrowing inside her, wringing her soul dry.

No, that man had not an ounce of fear left in his body; not even for God Himself. There was only warped cruelty and madness.

“The lord… is not afraid of coming down here. It is more like… He just does not see the people who live here. He does not fear or hate them, he only think of them as if they don’t exist, as if they are…”

“You are my property. You are to do as I say. You are not to talk back or criticize.

And you are to give everything to me. Your life. Your body. Your soul. Your love. Every last thing.”

Laughters. Blood. Torn flesh.

“Not human.”

Maria and Iris exchanged a look, an uncomfortable expression spreading on both of their faces. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. She vaguely wondered if they now thought she was insane — but then quickly realized she didn’t care.

Many people here talked about the lord; there hadn’t been one day spent in the slums where she hadn’t heard his name, even in her limited social space. They were all so scared of him, but most didn’t even knew what he looked like. She was the only one here who had a very personal experience with him, besides the slave man and his big blond friend, so of course these women who’d never interacted with the man wouldn’t understand. And even then, she was still probably the only person who’d spent as much time with him and held actual, prolonged conversations.

How much time had she spent at that manor, tied up on that altar? Weeks? Months? Years?

She hadn’t been able to tell, as if time broke inside these walls.

At some point, it had just stopped mattering — stopped feeling real.

In a way, it still didn’t feel real.

A throat clear snapped her out of her thoughts; some clumsy attempt at getting them out of the uncomfortable silence that had prevailed until now.

“O-Okay, well, who cares anyway, right?” Morgana recognized Maria’s voice, although she couldn’t bring herself to lift her head to confirm it. “We have better things to do. We should go now or we’ll still be there tonight.”

“Th-That’s right,” Iris agreed, and without waiting a beat they started walking through the street again. Her hand was still holding Morgana’s in hers, and this time the girl didn’t try to slap it away.

The routine bustling of the slums had gone back to normal, forgetting all about the threatening visit they’d just experienced, and Morgana let her eyes ran over the weathered buildings, the starved homeless people and the emaciated orphans at every corners of the streets. Morgana’s birth village had been relatively poor, but even so it had never reached this level of miserable, and of indifference in that miserableness, that could be seen here. Such a stark display of human depravity piqued her instincts as a saint, her desire to help and use her blood on the sick, abandoned people lying down on the side of the street resurfacing strongly.

Until she realized there were not just sick people that lied on the side of the street. In the darkest corners, hidden and confined so that they wouldn’t be as obvious to the naked eye, were bodies; unlike the diseased, none of them moved, breathed, whimpered.

Soulless corpses, sprawled and forgotten by all, slowly rotting away in complete apathy.

Her stomach turned.

“Huh…? Morgana, what’s wrong?”

Iris stopped as soon as she realized the young girl was not following them anymore, and Maria imitated her shortly after. Morgana had come to a halt right in front of a dark alleyway, and her eyes were staring intensely at the dead bodies.

“What… are those?” She articulated slowly.

That was a stupid question; of course she already knew what those were, but the words escaped her anyway.

“Oh… that,” Maria said. “Well, you’re new here, so I guess it must be unusual to you. It’s just some poor guys who are too unfortunate to have anyone care for them and died here alone. Or, guys that no one wants so they just ditch them out here.”

Once again, a nauseous, dizzy feeling washed over Morgana, and her throat felt dry.

“J-Just… leave them here?” She stammered. “B-But, you don’t— you don’t bury them?”

Maria arched an eyebrow and stared at her as if she was some curious creature.

“Well, why bother, y’know?” She finally let out. “Like, we don’t know these folks, and we have already a lot of shit on our hands to deal with, so… Who would actually waste time to bury some randos?”

Her answer actually horrified her. She just couldn’t comprehend how could anyone think that way; it just went against every single one of her principles.

“B-But if you don’t bury them… then their souls can’t move on to the afterlife!” She exclaimed, and she couldn’t tell if she felt angry or saddened or both at the same time. “They’ll stay stuck on earth and never reach the purgatory!”

The two women seemed taken aback by her behavior. Maria looked uneasy, as she bit her lip and smiled awkwardly.

“I mean… maybe…? Sucks for them, I guess? But again, it’s none of our business. And it’s none of yours too, isn’t it?”

Something burned inside Morgana’s chest, her stomach, her whole body. She couldn’t like Maria for the simple fact that she was a prostitute — a woman choosing to live in sin — but at this very moment, she actually felt hatred towards her and her cold words. She wanted to yell at her; how could she so unceremoniously spat on God’s teaching? Throw away others’ souls and lives for her own? Did she simply had no moral consciousness at all?

Maybe Iris sensed her distress, because she then put a hand on her shoulder, crouching down to reach her height, and smiled gently.

“It’s not like we think it’s a good thing. I know it can be upsetting, Morgana… but, you see, we’re still just trying to survive as best as we can here already, so… we simply cannot care as much for people who cannot be saved anymore anyway. Do you understand?”

She didn’t. Of course she didn’t; that made no sense. What did she mean, ‘people who can’t be saved anymore’? Their physical envelop may be dead, but their souls weren’t — in fact, it was the most important part of a person. They absolutely could still be saved; it was when it would be decided what’ll happen for them in the afterlife.

And they were saying it just didn’t matter? That their own survival was more important?

If she hadn’t been the dignified daughter of God, Morgana would have screamed in her face. But she controlled her anger and did her best to keep it in. Doing so would not only be unbefitting of her, it would also serve no purpose, she realized.

Clearly, these women were way too sinful to even realize what sort of blasphemous inanities they were proffering. And Morgana didn’t think they’d understand, even if she were to take all the time in the world to explain it.

“C’mon now, let’s stop talking about those depressing stuffs,” Maria finally cut in. “Let me remind you, we still have work to do, girls! So let’s move on already!”

“Yes… that’s right. Let’s go, Morgana.”

Iris smiled, and extended her hand towards the girl again. She didn’t take it. Instead, she ignored her and started walking with her head hung down, trying her best not to turn around.

She bit her lip. Her scraped, fleshless lip; cursed along with the rest of her life, festered and desecrated along with the rest of her body and mind.

A constant reminder of how defiled she was, how her entire identity had been ripped away from her, how useless and meaningless her life had now become — and how she was just a coward running away from her duties.

In this instant, she really felt like she wasn’t that different from the corpses rotting away in the dark alleys that everyone here had forgotten about.

________________________________________________________________

“What do you mean, you ‘lost’ her?!”

Jacopo felt like tearing out his hair — he yelled, not even trying to hide his frustration. His childhood friend, on the other hand, seemed very indifferent; both concerning the news she’d just broke to him and towards his anger.

She just shrugged. “Well, y’know. Shit happens.”

And this definitely didn’t help her case. Iris was at her side, looking down shamefully, and the contrast between the two would have been kind of funny if not for the circumstances.

“Maria, it was your job to look after her! Bringing her outside wasn’t a bad idea, but you had to be careful!”

“Dude, chill, okay? I’m not a freakin’ babysitter. You’re the one who brought her to the brothel to start with!”

“And you’re the one who agreed to help me take care of her! Which you clearly didn’t do, right now!”

“N-Now, please you two, don’t fight… We won’t find her like this…”

Iris stepped forward, trying to put some distance between her arguing friends, and Jacopo reluctantly listened to her, sighing and running his hands in his hair.

Certainly, fighting only made them lose time that could be used to look for Morgana, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop feeling annoyed at Maria.

“Well then, explain everything again. What happened exactly?”

“I told you! We’d just came back from our little shopping trip, and I turned my back for like two minutes then poof, she was gone. I really can’t tell you more than that.”

Jacopo groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, is there anything that could indicate where she went? Did she say anything on the way?”

Iris tilted her head thoughtfully, putting a finger on her lip. “Not particularly… But, well, she was her usual odd self, you know? The only instances I can think of is when we ran into the guards like we told you earlier, or… the moment where she stopped because of the corpses.”

“The corpses?”

Maria sighed. “Oh, yeah. At some point we came across some corpses. You know, nothing unusual. But when the girl saw them, she kinda threw a fit. About how we couldn’t just let them rot like that, that we needed to bury them, yadda, yadda.”

“We explained to her that we didn’t have any other choices,” Iris continued. “We don’t know these people, but she still seemed upset… She must be very pious.”

Maria snorted derisively, and Iris shot her a disapproving look. Certainly, Jacopo was well aware by now just how deeply religious Morgana was, and it didn’t surprise him that she wouldn’t like the idea of letting dead people unburied, no matter how silly he personally thought it was.

“So, that’s all then? You’ve got nothing about where she could be?”

“Look, dude, we already did all we could for her, okay? I can’t have my eyes on her every waking moment, and like I said, I just let go of her for two minutes. We’re already doing the best we can, so cut it out with the haughty tone.”

Maria glared at him with her arms crossed, and this actually made Jacopo feel a bit ashamed. Truth be told, he did feel bad to leave Morgana so much in Maria and the other girls’ care. After all, that child wasn’t their responsibility, and they struggled enough like that with the brothel and to survive out there without having to look after a kid with a bad character who hated them. But they were the friends he trusted the most, and he didn’t know who else to ask — that certainly wasn’t a service he could demand of the guys at the pub, and, for as much as Morgana couldn’t stand the prostitutes, he was still certain she was more comfortable living with other women than with some older men she didn’t know.

“You’re right… sorry. I’m just… I’m worried. Anything could happen to her, so we need to find her quickly, especially before it gets dark.”

Iris smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We still have time before opening the brothel, so I’ll ask Lili and the others to help look as well. It’ll be okay.”

“I appreciate it,” he said, sincerely.

Iris simply nodded back at him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, and then she stepped aside towards the backroom. Maria let out a sigh as soon as she went away, and she and Jacopo exchanged a look.

“Well, we’d better start looking as well, then.”

And so they did. They separated into three groups with the other prostitutes; he and Maria inspecting the west of the slums while the others took upon the east and south. But even with a few people, the slums were big and it felt like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“That’s where we stopped for a while,” Maria declared, as they stopped at the street the three of them had been earlier. “And where the guards showed up. They were really mad, by the way. It seems you guys really did a number on the lord with your little revolt.”

“Yes, well, that was the goal. Even so, something like this still won’t be enough to stop him.” Jacopo could feel Maria was about to make a snide comment, so he decided to quickly change the topic — not wanting to fight with her about this right now: “So you think she must still be around here?”

Maria shook her head exasperatedly. “I don’t know, Jacopo. I’m just telling you where we went, but honestly, she could be anywhere right now. And we already retraced our steps with Iris to look for her; she’s not here.”

Jacopo raised his head towards the sky — it was slowly starting to tint itself of a red-orange color, indicating evening was arriving. Soon, Maria and the others would have to open the brothel, and he’d be the only one left who could look for her.

“We can’t just look through the entire city before it gets dark, so we have to think strategically,” he declared. “We need to find her before the night.”

Maria stared at him in silence for a moment. She glanced left and right, bit her lip, and then finally scratched her head.

“Why, though? In a way, maybe it’d be better for all of us if she ran away and didn’t come back.”

Jacopo looked back at her with a bewildered expression.

“Are you really that hellbent on wanting to let her die?”

“God, of course I don’t wanna see that kid die! Stop making me sound like a heartless bitch, you know what I mean. A brothel isn’t a right place for a little girl, especially not if she can’t work. And — well, I definitely don’t have the best track records with them, but it’d probably be better for her to go to an orphanage or something. Surely not all of them are as bad as mine was.”

She wasn’t actually wrong. Jacopo knew that too, of course — logically, getting her to a place that could look after her properly like an orphanage should be the best course of action. Leaving her into hands that were infinitely more competent than him for that type of task.

So why couldn’t he just do that?

Maria waited for a response, and as none come, she looked at him weirdly.

“Do you really care that much about that girl?”

“It’s not like that,” he replied. “I just… I feel responsible, you know? I’m the one who saved her life.”

She kept staring at him dubiously, as if she was trying to read his mind. Maria was usually pretty good at reading his mind, but Jacopo wasn’t even sure what was going on in his head right now, so he doubted she’d be able to decipher it in his stead.

Even now… he still wasn’t really sure why he had saved the girl.

Of course he hadn’t wanted a child to die, especially so cruelly. It had been the right thing to do. But Barnier’s words resounded ominously in his brain, plaguing him like a curse, and he couldn’t get rid of them, no matter how hard he tried.

Still, he thought back about the morning he spent with her two days ago. About the way she’d bundled herself up in her bed, hidden under her hood. About the way she’d warily chewed on her bread like she was afraid he’d take it away from at the slightest mistake, and the way she was so completely unable to sustain anyone’s gaze.

And then he thought back to the young boy he’d been at least ten years ago now.

“I understand what she’s going through right now, that’s all.”

“What do you understand? You just met her!”

“I just do, okay?!”

Maria opened her mouth, apparently ready to argue back, but no words came out. Instead, she simply stared at him, straight into his eyes. Jacopo couldn’t make out her expression, and for all their usual shared complicity, this time he also couldn’t make out what could be the thoughts crossing her mind. Her pointed gaze on him started to feel uncomfortable, and he ended up looking away.

A silence followed their outburst, until finally his friend sighed.

“All right,” she declared. “All right. I get it.”

Jacopo risked a glance at her, and she seemed… understanding. He didn’t really know if she truly ‘got it,’ because if she did then that’d meant she’d figured out something about him not even he himself had been able to. Then again, if there was someone out there who could do that, it definitely was Maria.

“I think we’ll have more chance to find her if we separate as well,” she finally added. “I’ll take the south, you keep looking in that direction. But I’ll have to go back when it’s time for the brothel to open. Is that fine with you?”

“…Yeah. Sounds good.”

Maria nodded, then started to walk away — however, she seemed to change her mind at the last minute and went back to put a hand on Jacopo’s shoulder.

“For what it’s worth,” she said in an unusual soft voice. “I do hope we’ll find her in one piece. I don’t want her to die.”

“…I know.”

She leveled a concerned look at him, before finally setting off. Once all alone in the street, Jacopo let out another sigh. Still, with all that said, he wasn’t actually more advanced. He followed Maria’s advice and kept looking around, trying to get her words out of his head, and not doing a good job at it.

“You’re a puny worm, powerless to truly ‘save’ anyone. You merely want to help the girl so you can pat yourself on the back and pretend you did a good deed.”

No matter how senseless the lord’s words were, they were glued to him and followed his every steps. He almost felt like the man’s shadow was right behind him, murmuring in his ears.

He shook his head, and looked up at the sky once more. Was Barnier right, after all…? Had it been nonsensical for him to try to save that girl’s life? Should he agree with Maria when she said it might’ve been better for the girl to get away from them?

Was he just making everything worse, after all?

The sky’s orange tint kept on getting darker and darker. Soon, it would probably be of a similar color as Morgana’s hair. He let his gaze fell on the street, and noticed in the corner of the district a dark alley littered with corpses. A sad sight he’d gotten way too used to in his years of living here.

But then suddenly, what Iris and Maria had told him earlier came back to him. About Morgana’s reaction to the slums’ dead bodies. He’d already looked around to see if she’d stayed nearby them, but hadn’t been lucky. Still, if he remembered well, Maria had said Morgana had been particularly upset about the fact they weren’t buried—

Of course…! Why didn’t I think of it before?!

He instantly turned away and began to run.

________________________________________________________________

There was a small, deserted hill a little outside the slums, near the town’s entrance.

A tranquil, quiet field full of green grass, leafy trees and other growing plants no one was taking care of. The place was not good for any kind of plantations except those wild herbs, which was why despite the surface and the convenient placement, no farmers had tried to exploit the land, so only the rare travelers or kids who tried to find a place to play would hang around here.

In this field, kneeled in front of a handmade hole under the vermilion sunset, was the little girl with the red braids.

“Morgana!”

The child jumped and turned around as if she had been stung by a needle. Jacopo couldn’t really make out her expression under her hood and her scars, but she was clearly looking at him with wide, frightened golden eyes. However, as soon as she realized the person who called out to her was a familiar figure, her panic cooled down a little.

“As I thought,” he said, sighing.

“Wh-What are you doing here?”

“I should be the one to ask you this! Seriously, look at you.”

She was covered in mud from head to toes and was panting heavily, as if she’d just spent the afternoon running around — which could be true, for all he knew. Now that he was only two meters away from her, he also could clearly see a decrepit wooden plate she must’ve used to dig, as well as the rotting corpse at the side of the hole; the decomposed body of a middle-aged man, and given the gray state of his mangled, decayed flesh under which the bones stood out, he must’ve been dead for quite some time. The awful smell emanating from him was nauseous, and Jacopo had to really force himself to keep standing so close to him instead of turning away on the spot. He was used to corpses and rotten fleshes, sure, but that didn’t mean he was going to start finding them pleasant any time soon.

“How… did you find me?” The girl questioned suspiciously.

“Maria and Iris told me about what happened earlier… I thought if the corpses had really upset you that much, maybe you’d try to actually bury them yourself. And that for doing so you’ll search the most quiet, far away place without people.”

For all response, Morgana just stared quietly at him, but he knew he must’ve been right. He honestly felt kind of proud to have been able to guess her thought process, given how unreadable she was most of the time, but he wasn’t going to let that show on his face.

“Though seriously, I can’t believe you actually did this! Did you really brought that corpse here all by yourself? And made that hole?”

“…Of course I did… Who else would?”

Jacopo winced, before looking at the corpse and the hole. She was so tiny and meager, it must’ve been a freaking challenge to bring the dead body of an adult man here, and then to make that hole with nothing but her bare hands and some wooden plate. She must’ve been at it for hours — and with that sickening smell for only company on top of that. That girl really was completely crazy.

“Do you realize how dangerous what you did is? Running away like that on your own is stupid, especially without telling anyone! You really worried Maria and Iris, and anything could’ve happened to you! This is the slums here!”

“Well, nothing happened. Furthermore, that is… none of your business.”

“None of my— Oh, Jesus.”

Jacopo honestly thought about just leaving the ungrateful brat here — with her corpse and her hole, since she seemed so attached to them — and simply go back home and sleep. But of course his conscience would never let him sleep in peace if he did that. So he tried to calm his nerves, and sat down in front of her.

“Come now, that’s enough. Let’s go back at the brothel before it gets dark… Ugh, god, and look at your hands! They’re all scratched—”

“Don’t touch me!”

All while taking, he had tried to grab her wrists, but the moment his fingers had brushed hers she had brusquely hit his hand, pulled away, and glared at him fiercely.

Ah, right. He forgot about that, too.

“Uh… sorry. I won’t touch you. Okay? But we need to go back now.”

“…I… won’t go back.”

He blinked. “What? You’re kidding, right?”

“I won’t come back. Not until… I finish to bury him.”

“Oh for god’s sake… It’s a fucking corpse, Morgana! It’s— It’s dead! It won’t run away. It’ll still be here tomorrow!”

“I need to bury him now, that’s all,” Morgana replied, and dammit, why was that girl so annoyingly stubborn?

“Why do you even need to bury him at all anyway? I just… don’t get it. Whether it’s in the ground or not, it won’t change the fact he’s dead. It won’t bring him back to life.”

“It will not bring him back to life, no. But if he is not buried… then his soul cannot have a proper farewell. It will… not be able to depart from this earth, to join my Fa— God. This is an incredibly… cruel fate to inflict upon someone… and I cannot bear that idea.”

Restraining himself from rolling his eyes was harder than he’d thought right now. Here she was again, babbling about souls and God and duties. As someone who couldn’t give less of a damn about religion or God, he had very little patience for those kinds of talks; especially after hearing her preaching about it for days.

“All right, maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s dead, and you’re not, so I’m sorry but as long as it’s the case, you comes first.”

“I’m… fine. I won’t… die just because I’ll stay a bit late to bury this body…”

“I swear, it’s just stupid! Why are you so obsessed with this? In fact, maybe that guy was scum who doesn’t even deserve to be buried anyway! Again, it’s just not important—”

“It is important!”

Morgana had yelled.

An actual shout, which Jacopo never thought he’d ever heard from her — not when up until now the only sounds she seemed to be able to produce were barely audible murmurs. Her voice was trembling, and she was… clearly upset. He felt so taken aback that it froze him in place.

“It is important! M-Maybe he was a sinner, maybe he’s not worth it, but that’s not for us to judge! Only God can decide that! And if he doesn’t get a proper burial, th-then his soul will just wander around on earth for the rest of eternity… with nowhere to go, nowhere to go home!”

She raised her face towards him, and her golden eyes stared straight at him. They shined way too much, looking red under the sunset.

“It— It was the same at the manor, too! The lord just killed and killed and then threw away the corpses as if they were vulgar toys, without ever burying them! A-And if you can’t— can’t understand how heartless and barbaric that is, then— you’re really no better than him!”

She stopped yelling, but her body was shaking and she was breathing really heavily. She brought her hands to her face, and he heard her sniffling. Sadness and sympathy gripped him, and a little bit of guilt as well, for once again losing the control of his emotions and pushing her to this extreme uncharacteristic reaction.

“All right… fine,” he said softly, gently. “I get it. There was no need to get that upset or to cry—”

“I-I’m not crying! And I’m not upset!”

“Okay, okay.” He actually couldn’t really tell if she was crying or not, but she was very visibly upset. He wasn’t going to fight her on that point, though. “Either way, I get it, so… it’s fine.”

Then he leaned down, grabbed the wooden plate she’d left hanging on the ground… and began to dig. He couldn’t see the girl, too focused on his new task, but he could plainly feel her stare at him with wide eyes — could easily imagine her stunned expression.

“What… What are you doing?” She asked, her voice still trembling a little from her outburst.

“Isn’t that obvious? I’m helping you. Otherwise we’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“But… But you kept saying you thought it was stupid—”

“Yeah, and I still stand by that. I really don’t think dead people deserve that much attention… but…”

He stopped, then looked up at her in the eyes.

“But it’s important to you, right? So it doesn’t matter if I don’t get it.”

Morgana kept staring at him. Jacopo couldn’t tell her expression or what she was thinking, but at some point she just ended up nodding slightly, before starting digging as well.

None of them exchanged a single word while they were working. They simply finished making the hole in silence, dragged the body inside it, and recovered it with as much soils as they could. And as the final touch, Morgana put a rock a bit bigger than her hand on top of it, before grimacing.

“It needs a better gravestones,” she concluded, and Jacopo couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll have all the time you want tomorrow to find a better one, so please tell me you don’t intend to spend the night on it.”

Morgana stared at the makeshift burial, then at Jacopo, and, to his relief, she shook her head. “I’ll think about it… but tomorrow, not now.”

“Good! Then we can go—”

“Wait.”

He arched an eyebrow at her umpteenth protest, and then watched her kneel on the ground, join her hands together and hang down her head. At first he wasn’t sure what she intended to do, until he heard her small voice recite a feeble string of words.

A prayer, he realized. He instinctively let out another sigh, but decided it would do him no favor to interrupt her — so he just went to sit under the nearby tree, putting his hands behind his head as he watched her back and listened to her religious whispers.

After a while, he slowly closed his eyes. It felt soothing, somehow. Morgana didn’t speak much, but she had a very beautiful voice, so hearing her utter a prayer in such an unusual confident, fluent way felt particularly special — like he could genuinely believe there was something divine to this whole thing.

When was the last time I felt this relaxed? I can’t even remember…

It seemed like a very unique experience. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so at ease before; not even when he was having fun with Maria or his friends at the pub…

He practically let himself fell asleep when she finally stopped, and upon reopening his eyes he realized she was now briefly rearranging the improvised tomb, letting her small fingers run through the soils.

“Do you really know all these prayers by heart?” He asked; not that he was that interested in the topic, but it seemed like a lot of words to memorize for a young child.

“…Yes,” the girl replied. “The Bible too.”

“Wait. You know the entire freaking Bible by heart?”

“Of course. After all, I am the—”

Morgana stopped herself though, and then she looked away.

“You’re…?” Jacopo pressed her.

She seemed hesitant, but then she shook her head.

“Nothing,” she finally said.

He half-wanted to push her further on the issue, but he knew that doing so would only manage to close her off even more. So he just shrugged and looked around. The field was large and completely desert; definitely vast enough to bury dozens and dozens of holes like this one.

“Just out of curiosity… Something tell me this isn’t the only abandoned corpse that bothered you in slums, right? So do you intend to just… do the same with the others? Bury them?”

“Would there… be a problem with that?”

“Well… this land belongs to no one, so I guess not, but… Are you sure you want to do something like that?”

“…You’re the one who told me to find a hobby.”

“I-I did, but… I was more thinking about something like playing with other kids, not— burying corpses. I mean, you realize it’s a lot of work, right? And corpses can bring in diseases so it can be dangerous to—”

“I want to do it.”

She turned around towards him, golden eyes piercing him.

“I… need to.”

A part of him had been about to object some more, but staring straight at her, all of his arguments about it suddenly felt moot. Of course he still wasn’t very enthusiastic about this creepy idea of taking care of the random dead bodies that littered their streets, but… He knew, the moment he saw her eyes, that he wouldn’t change her mind.

But more than that, even without knowing anything of this girl’s life, he could understand, relate to her demand — to her need to do something.

That was why in the end, he simply nodded and whispered ‘all right,’ in a soft voice.

“Then now we should really go back. Maria and the others should be worried sick by now.”

“Maria…?”

“Yeah.” He crossed his arms. “Short. Blonde. Angry.”

“No, I know who she is… It’s just that… she doesn’t seem like the kind of person to get worried…” She paused, then added more softly: “And I don’t think she… likes me very much.”

Jacopo laughed out loud at this. “Well, I won’t deny she’s not super fond of you right now. And I know she can be kinda scary sometimes, but I promise she’s a good person at heart. She’s very protective of people she cares about. Once you get to know her, she would die for you without hesitation.”

He knew, because she’d done so for him a lot of times already. Well, without the dying part thankfully, but that was the attention that counted.

“Though, you know… if she’s harsh with you, that’s kinda your fault too. If you stopped being so awful to her and the others at the brothel, I promise you’d get along well. The other women are all kind people as well. Just try to be a little more friendly, and you’ll see.”

The girl stayed quiet, and Jacopo was aware that it would probably take more than a few words to convince her. But he still hoped one day she’ll manage to get along well with Maria and the others… and with him too, of course.

“Anyway, let’s go,” he concluded, standing up.

He extended his hand towards Morgana, smiling. She looked up at him, then at his hand. For a brief moment, she seemed to be about to reach out towards him… but the instant she saw her own hand, covered in cuts, she stopped. To his surprised, she instead got up on her own.

“I don’t need your help,” she replied firmly. “Let’s go.”

And without any more words, she walked away— leaving Jacopo all by himself with his extended hand feeling like an idiot.

“Hey, are you kidding me?! You could’ve at least accepted that much, right?”

He screamed, running after her, and — although it could’ve just been his imagination, as soon as he got to her side he got the impression to distinguish the premise of a smile behind her scarred face.

A small, amused smile; and he realized, then, that regardless of if that had been real or if it was just his mind playing with him, the feeling of warmness it made bloom in his chest was genuine. That the happiness born from the idea of having managed to maybe makes her smile was one of the most content and pleasant feeling he’d experienced in a while.

And that if he could, he definitely wanted to try to do anything to make it happen again.

He still didn’t know what to make of the lord’s taunting or Maria’s warnings; maybe they were right. But in this moment, as the two of them together were leaving this bereft field slowly engulfed in darkness where was buried a single corpse, it didn’t matter.

What mattered is that he knew he had a renewed wish to help this girl, and he was well-decided to do anything in his power to make it work.

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