Lunatics Be Lunaticing

Cecilia walked towards the crowd of people hesitantly; it had been a long time since she had been in such a crowded place.

Many people brushed on her shoulders left and right, and the many different voices at different volumes made her dizzy and anxious.

"Hey, watch it!" She bumped into a guy when she looked to her sides while walking, and she turned to apologize when another person, probably smaller this time, bumped her in the back.

This confused Cecilia, and she was unable to find the original man. When she turned back, the other person had also already left.

Cecilia was on the verge of tears, which quickly turned into actual tears when it dawned on her that her backpack had disappeared. All she could see was a sliver of orange before it disappeared back into the crowd.

All Cecilia wanted to do at that moment was kneel where she stood and cry until Sirius came to take her back to their quiet home, but she knew it was no longer possible.

After a short while, Cecilia took deep breaths and walked resolutely to the group of people Sirius had ordered her to meet.

Even in the crowded crowd, this group stood out in particular. It seems as if no day-to-day dirt of the crowd infects their obviously expensive clothes, and even the strong sea breeze couldn't stir a single hair from the clearly styled hairstyles of each of them.

Each and every one of the group of several dozen people looked like a British gentleman from the 1930s; if British gentlemen from the 1930s all had expressions as if dogs covered in poo were sniffing them out,.

"Um, excuse me."

She plucked up the courage to approach the person who seemed to be the easiest to talk to in the group, the only girl, especially since she seemed to be the only one in a good mood there.

"What, little child? Shoo! Shoo!"

Well, she clearly got it wrong.

"Are you... shooing me?"

"Shoo! Go to your little family back, little girl."

"I'm not-"

"Doesn't she understand humans? I. told. you. to. leave."

Did she turn to the wrong group? Did Sirius point at other people? Could it be that they went to the wrong pier all together?

Cecilia decided to take her chances and just shout the one word he let her sneak in between the shuing.

"Academia!"

She finally got some peace as the heads in front of her turned to her.

"YOU'RE CECILIA?"

Don't blame them for their surprise; despite her age, due to issues of malnutrition, Cecilia looked much shorter than a 15-year-old should be, which made her look even more out of place in the company of these clearly wealthy young adults.

"Yes, Sirius sent me to look for the ship, The Duchess of Malfi. I've lost my bagpack. Who are you?"

Learning from past experience, Cecilia tried to speak as quickly as possible, lest she be silenced again.

And as it turned out, she was right. 

Not really noticing a word she said, the stranger she judged as "the most friendly" took out an expensive-looking dagger from an unknown place and grabbed her hand tightly.

"HELP! Please someon- mmm!"

Before she could alert the bystanders she was being attacked with a knife, one of the men covered her mouth with his palm and pulled her head into his chest, incidentally making it even more impossible for her to break free.

As the dagger stabbed her wrist, the blood didn't drain down to the ground as you would expect; rather, it drained up the dagger and slowly dyed the entire blade dark red.

"She's right; she's one of us." The formally friendly-looking stranger—she found the most inopportune time to notice that she had the most gorgeous blue eyes—dropped her palm and cleaned the knife on his coat, oblivious to the fact that she was destroying clothing estimated to be worth thousands of dollars.

"Now, I let you go if you promise to be good and not make a fuss, understood?"

His dark hair falling over his eyes could not hide the bloodthirsty expression within them. She wanted to nod quickly, but his grip was so strong that she could not move an inch of her head in any direction.

The tall man noticed her distress, and he released her head from his chest and said, "Oh, how foolish of me."

Like a broken marionette, she collapsed to the ground the moment she lost his grip on her, breathing heavily.

"Well, it took her long enough," a blond guy who only watched the show up to this moment decided to intervene. "It's almost noon; I recommend we start moving."

"We can't!" Cecilia let outa sigh between her breaths, momentarily forgetting her fear of this crazy group. "My backpack was stolen; we must return it!"

The blond guy looked at her condescendingly and said, "We don't have time for this nonsense."

"So I'm not going until we find the bagpack; you can kill me if you want."

Cecilia didn't care about many things—too many things, in fact—but the backpack contained the first gift she received from Sirius. She couldn't lose it.

"There, there, how much is the bag worth? How about I give you double, no, ten times its worth?" The black-haired guy patted her head as if she were an angry puppy.

"My da-Sirius gave me something in the car; I haven't found out what it is yet. We can't leave."

"Wait." The blond guy knelt down and met her eyes, trying to see the lie out of them. "So you're saying that the Guardian Sirius gave you something you don't know whose origin or even what it is, and it's now gone around in the hands of the commons, potentially in touch with thousands of thousands of people?"

"I think so-?"

"Fuck!"