7 ~ Chapter Seven: The Slums ~

Lucia, after waking up for the fifth time throughout the night in tears, decided to get a head start on her chores. Originally she had planned to be well-rested to explore the city to her heart's content, but imagery of Sylvia's death seemed inescapable, even in her own dream world.

After Lucia had dragged Spells upstairs into the library last night, she had begun looking through the different texts on Sabina's shelves. Her primary focus had been finding information on the different creatures in the world; from demons with sexual tendencies to shadow monsters who ate up magic, Lucia instead ended up restless while she flipped through various pages.

Spells, after hearing her sigh and watch as her left leg bounced up and down, decided to interrupt Lucia's reading time. "Little Fangs ~," he mused, "while books can be helpful, seeing our brethren up close and in action is what'll truly stick." After watching her eyes widen, Spells shut his own eyes and returned to sleep.

Spells' words hadn't vanished from her thoughts even as she was finishing up cleaning the sink. Well, one little word in particular had caught her off guard, "breathren". While she was a vampire, that didn't make her the same as those other canabalistic monsters that took joy in terrorizing people. Did it?

Lucia let out a sigh as she wiped her hands clean of water. She turned to the chalkboard and put a line through "clean kitchen sink", nodding in pride with herself. The number of two-thousand gold remained at the top of the board while a much smaller number was right underneath it, not even equivalent to one gold. One silver and five copper was how much she had made yesterday, at this rate, she'd be Sabina's slave for decades.

Spells jumped up on the counter and snickered at Lucis's pout. "Master is very considerate even giving you one silver, Little Fangs."

Truthfully, Lucia didn't have a good understanding of money. She knew the basics of course, from Tutor Zex; twenty copper was equivalent to one silver, fifteen silver equivalent to one gold. All Lucia understood looking at the amount she had, was that it wasn't enough for even one gold taken off of her sum. Tutor Zex had once explained that an average royal maid serving the palace earned one silver a day, so Lucia guessed Spells' words were accurate considering she didn't do nearly as much as they do yesterday.

"How long is this going to take me?" Lucia muttered under her breath towards herself.

Spells answered anyway, "You are a vampire, you have forever Little Fangs ~." Spells laughed heartily while Lucia felt like crying.

Lucia looked at the rest of her chores she had to do, which was actually none. . . There was only three things on the board to begin with, cleaning the sink, watering the plants, and washing the many flasks and beakers Sabina used for making potions. Lucia had somehow managed to do all of them just in time for the sun to be bright in the sky.

Feeling a bit complacent on what she should do next, she listened for Sabina. While Lucia realized she couldn't hear Sabina herself, if she listened to the way the boards creaked she could tell if Sabina was up and moving or not.

As she listened, indeed the boards creaked different from how the old house sounded on its own. She must be up now!

As if on que, Sabina's door swung open revealing a tired woman who sighed at the sigh of the young servant she had. "If you're going to wake up this early, you might as well make me breakfast."

Another chore. Lucia had never made breakfast before, "H-How do I go about doing that? I've never cooked before. . ."

"It's midmorning and yet I feel defeated by your stupidity already," Sabina sighed for the second time since she woke up.

"Since I'm making myself something to eat anyways, you can watch." Sabina proceeded to teach Lucia how to make scrambled eggs and toast on her stove which Lucia memorized in awe.

Lucia didn't feel hungry as she watched Sabina eat, in fact the last time she felt hungry was yesterday morning before Sabina had let her feast on her blood. She'd be lying if she didn't want more, the taste of blood just one of the many thoughts in her mind. Sabina was about to take the last bite of egg but instead handed the fork over to Lucia, "I've never seen a vampire eat any food besides blood before."

Lucia paled. What if she died! What an anticlimactic way to go—death by egg. Lucia nervously looked at the forkful of egg and Sabina rolled her eyes. "It won't kill you, probably."

Sabina's words did not reassure her, but Lucia nonetheless took the forkful of egg and shoved the food into her mouth.

The former princess of course had egg before, but thinking to blame it on Sabina's cooking, it was incredibly bland. Tasteless almost? Lucia swallowed the food and placed the fork on the empty plate while Sabina burst into laughter.

"You look incredibly stupid right now with that confused look," Sabina laughed. "What does it taste like that's making your face like that?"

"Nothing," Lucia replied. "It's almost like water, maybe?"

Sabina stopped laughing and only watched the girl, "Hmm, and how would you describe the taste of blood then?"

Lucia felt herself salivating as she remembered the taste. "Like all the best desserts and meats in Varis, it's-it's-"

"I once asked an older vampire that same question and his eyes lit up with the same passion as yours. Funny, considering you've only had it twice now. You're very much a monster.

The smile Lucia had been wearing when imaging the delicious taste disappeared. A monster. She kept using that word. Lucia tried to shake her thoughts and went to wash Sabina's plate in silence. The Red Witch only watched her.

"I'll be busy today so find someone else to annoy," Sabina got up from her seat and disappeared into that room between the bathroom and the library that Lucia had been caught trying to enter.

"Spells? What is that room for?" Lucia asked the cat quietly as if Sabina would hear her.

"Where she kills people," Spells answered nonchalantly but then burst into a cackle as he watched Lucia's face pale. "Relax Little Fangs, it's where she practices magic and makes all her fancy potions."

"Oh," Lucia felt much better hearing the last sentence Spells spoke.

"Now get lost, Master is graciously allowing you time to play outside, go!" Spells weaving throughout her legs caused her to somehow end up at the front door of the old house.

With that, Lucia was kicked out by a talking black cat.

The street was a narrow dirt road with shacks for houses and run-down bars and shops along it's sides. The road even tapered off into many unknown directions, what Lucia guessed was down alleyways or more streets that held even more homes.

Sabina's house seemed bigger than most on the shared street, even as it decieved the outside world into thinking it was tiny. At least the Red Witch's house wasn't falling apart like most on the block that had holes or broken wood in rooves and sides of homes.

This was the first time Lucia had experienced what the so-called "Slums" were. The Queen, when she rarely spoke of anyone but herself, would refer to this part of the city of where the poor, the homeless, and the drunkards would gather. Even looking around at midmorning just infront of Sabina's house, Lucia could validate the Queen's nasty remarks about the place and couldn't help but cast a glance towards the towering palace that was held directly in the center of the city. No matter where you were in this city, you could always see the palace, a symbol of who was ruling over the country.

Looking around, Lucia watched as groups of kid's were playing on the dirt street, many of them filthy and wearing rags even with a thin blanket of snow covering every surface of the outside. None of them or the nearest adults seemed to care for the fact that adult signs were held over different shops, about the broken glass or various heaps of trash on the sides of buildings. The kids played to their hearts content with tired eyed, the two adults who sat on their broken porch smoking away held no sign of blocking the children's eyes or pulling them inside, not even putting out their cigarettes.

Lucia ventured closer to the kids, most of their eyes rolling over her petit figure and only seeing the fact that she had fresh clean clothes and moved away.

"I only wanted to say hello," Lucia huffed under her breath.

Lucia knew when she wasn't wanted and let them play in peace, instead deciding to take a look at the shops and taverns. It was only mid-morning, yet as shops were opening some bars were filling with new customers while others were closing, throwing out customers.

Only intending to take a glance at the noisy bar, the former princess suddenly came to a halt as the door to that very bar was thrown open and a male figure was tossed onto the road by a large burly man from the bar, Kingly's. The dark-skinned man shouted at the smaller, older man, "John, get your shit together and pay your tab next time!" with that he slammed the door and left the older guy to himself.

The man, who Lucia guessed was in his late-fifties, was a wreck. His collar was sticking up, his shirt different shades of yellow while Lucia was sure it was once supposed to be white. The older gentlemen gathered himself and caught Lucia's eyes.

"Say, do you have some cash on you little one?" the man's voice was rough and tired. Even as Lucia was standing ten feet away, with her strong senses the man practically radiated alcohol.

"I'm sorry sir, I do not," Lucia shook her head.

"Tch. Come on, don't be stingy," the older man was getting closer now. Lucia took a step back.

"I-I should be going now sir," Lucia spun on her heel but the man caught her wrist.

"Not many kids around here are clean like you are, come on, just give me some money to help an old man out?"

Lucia felt contaminated under his grip. It wasn't strong, and she wasn't in pain, yet his face so close to hers and the smell of alcohol made her sick. Lucia used her strength and the older man fell backwards hard.

"W-What the hell?" the older man was miffed by being pushed and shoved down so hard he fell.

"Dad!" a child's voice called. Lucia looked over and found a boy bigger than her bounding over, his fluffy orange hair bouncing as he ran. "Leave people alone!"

"Oh my son, my good little boy, I was just asking her if she had any money to spare poor old me," the man responded and patted his son's small shoulders.

"You're coming off as a creep," the young boy sighed and then looked up at Lucia with his big eyes that lit up like sparkling green gems. "I'm sorry about my dad, he's just a little pushy when he's drunk."

"It-It's alright," Lucia responded, feeling guilty for pushing the old man so hard.

"Alright alright, I admit I was being pushy, just wanted to buy some cigarettes," the old man sighed. "I'm going to bed now."

The old man entered the nearest house to the bar leaving Lucia alone with the young boy.

"I haven't seen you around here before!" the young boy said in surprise. "I've been living here forever so I know who's around here usually, especially if they're my age. I'm Jaxson!"

"L-uhh, Emilia, and I'm new around here," Lucia responded, catching herself before she introduced herself with her actual name.

"Ahh, cool! I'm twelve, been here forever. How old are you?" Jaxson moved from question to question as he spoke.

"E-Eleven," Lucia answered, not quite used to all this energy.

"Well Emilia, I hope we can be friends and play together! The Slums can get pretty lonely if you don't have a friend," he smiled, big and bright and so full of innocence.

"Yes! I'd like that," Lucia smiled back at the older boy. A friend! This was the very first time she's ever had someone close in age as a friend.