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[sub][color=Silver][i]The Siege of Amone, September 10th - [b]The Drop of Shame[/b][/i][/color][/sub]
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[color=Silver]	Upon arrival at the White Hart, Lucia didn't know what to think. Michael had made himself useful by ending up in a seemingly endless debate, or rather a discussion, over ideologies, mechanical beasts and other strange topics she couldn't properly fathom. It all went over her sweet little head, having on idea what the big words were. It reminded her of her first few days spent with Middleton, back when he seemed to be unexpectedly protective and compassionate about her own safety. He always threw around terms that the isolated angel had never heard before. Conduction of military strategy, and all that sort of random nonsense that never truly resonated well with the Asseni girl. Those were the times of building their empirical trust, which obviously led into the brutal reality that was their connection. She was still blissfully unaware of the extent she'd been brutalised, but her radicalised mind said otherwise, stating that what Middleton had done for her was in the best interests of science, the Federation, the army and the progress of the war. She'd lost her parents to the early days and now she was alone, with no one else to turn to. If Middleton wouldn't have provided her hospice or a sense of purpose, no matter how cruel and abusive it was, where would she be? Laid face first in the bottom of a ditch, most likely. To her, as wrong as it was, she believed that Middleton had saved her. He'd helped her ascend out of the ditches of her very suffering and lifted her into a salvation unlike any other: purpose. A meaning was enticing, nearly as enticing as a burning passion she seemed to have grown since her time within Squad 1. Potentially striking against the very crisis that had subverted all her expectations of a happy future, each slam of Middleton's fist that launched against her face was often perceived as a reminder of how lucky she was. She'd faced death twice, and nearly felt starvation come to her. In her mind, Middleton loved her as a daughter, as a subordinate and as a friend, where the truth was very much the complete opposite. She'd received several beatings when it came to talking to Michael more and more, but the pay-off was far greater, as she suddenly felt more compelled to talk to the enigma of a boy.

	Her mind wandered in many directions as she lost some interest in the depths of Michael's conversation, forcing her legs to almost straggle around in strange and sporadic fashion. From table to table, she would watch from afar and study what people were doing. It was strange, all of this. Never before had the girl ever come across a bright and cheerful environment, one that even blew all expectations of recreational activity out of her imagination. People were laughing around, playing strange games with cards unheard of in her mind, and drinking their livers into oblivion. Lucia's mind was fixated on the smells and sounds of liquids washing around gently in their mugs and flasks. All the scents seemed to clash, creating one vile scoundrel of a foul breath tickling her senses. Her face began to crease into multiple forms of disgust, intrigue and appreciation. Some of the alcoholic incenses seemed to trigger many memories inside her fragile mind, mimicking the same sensations she'd felt when in the company of her superior Captain. Part of her smiled, and the other part of her was broken at the thought of those tough, barbaric nights. She'd always seemed to have a mild curiosity, however, and Lucia was very much aware that it was beginning to brood once more.

	What...did this alcohol taste like? Were there many forms of it? Was it a really refreshing drink? Many people and soldiers seemed to chug them down in large quantities and made for their ever-lasting evenings to be more enjoyable. It seemed quite mystic, didn't it? A small potion of sorts that could calm the nerves of one and bring out the best, most bubbly and giggly individual that was tucked beneath layers of sadness, boredom, sorrow and many other emotions. Plentiful options of exasperated potential seemed to be tucked within the spiralling flavours of these beverages so widely distributed around the world. Europa was apparently a fine place for these drinks, and many men and women alike enjoyed them as much as anyone else. It caught her attention without much effort. Her body was trailed onto its vapours and suddenly brought from table to table, sniffing away at the many different flavours on offer. Some had a hint of apple, which was cider most likely. Others held strange tastes that were either comparable to a wet fish or some other sort of deprived-of-dryness creature. Hydration was a key part to her life cycle. She imagined that Michael would be upset if she wasn't properly fuelled up with such necessities for the human body, and so she struck herself a big-girl post and began to march towards the bar counter. One boot stamp at a time, she eventually drew close enough to sit on one of the stools, leaning against it in a predominant, yet clearly false, representation of prowess and importance. It took a few seconds for the barmaid to catch her attention, but in a few seconds, and after a rather patronising clearing of her throat, Lucia looked up to the fair lady with an unintentionally hilarious attitude about her.[/color]

[color=A9FF7D][b]"Yeah I would li-"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]With a short stammer, she quickly cleared her throat once more before starting again. The second attempt, however, was built upon this small and pathetic squeak, attempting to make her voice deeper to sound far more important than she really was. Her heart slightly sank when she saw the barmaid trying not to laugh, stifling a quick smirk to herself as Lucia continued down her poor facade.[/color] [color=A9FF7D][b]"I was coming through Amone, you know, petty fighting...Was looking for a sort of, sweetened beverage. I heard this place was the finest in town, and I wanted to know if-"[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	With a quick giggle, the woman patted Lucia's head suddenly, catching her off guard and causing her to blush wildly as she had been caught out immediately from the poor man's attempt at being masculine or prominently powerful as a small Asseni girl could be. [/color]

[color=Orange][b]"Aww, want a drink, Hun?"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Lucia's face growled the most pathetic growl ever witnessed on the face of Europa. She had tried desperately to preserve her tough-girl attitude and remove all suspicions of her youthful existence, but she'd been caught onto within a few seconds flat. Her small pout brought a big grin to the barmaid's face, who seemed to be getting some enjoyment out of her deductive initiative.[/color]

[color=A9FF7D][b]"O-oooh yes pl-"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Once again, she stopped her bright chirp of excitement and replaced it with her now staple deepened voice, one that made her sound like she'd only heard of someone who'd been through puberty fully and not yet heard what they sound like. The demanding tone of her voice was enough to finally catch her attention and keep it at least on a mutual understanding, but the grin of the barmaid never dropped away.[/color] [color=A9FF7D][b]"I-I mean...Yeah I was waiting for you to offer me one."[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	A few more minutes of embarrassment came out, and Lucia eventually got her drink. The glass was far larger than she though, pushing the boundaries of a safe level of drinking. For a second, she looked over to where Michael was, and there was still a detailed conversation in place. Lucia jokingly rolled her eyes and watched from the sides, feeling rather proud of the fact she managed to independently get one of these popular beverages. But, what should she do now? She got the thrill out of at least acquiring the drink, but now she was stood around lazily with the watery container locked tightly in her grasp. Michael still seemed to be busy, so perhaps it wasn't going to be a bad way to pass the time? A few sips wouldn't hurt here would they? After all, Jean was seemingly encouraging a more relaxed behaviour amongst the Squad, giving them the benefits of relief and release of stress to ultimately preserve what little morale the squad had left. The lively environment began to persuade her more. She took one last look at Michael, figuring out that they were definitely going to be a long while in their detailed conversation. And so, Lucia snuck away to a corner of her own, and with a strange and hesitant few minutes of staring at the glass, Lucia took her first drink.

	Time seemed to fly by effortlessly. Or was it slowly now? She couldn't tell. Her eyes and her ears were all drowsy. Minutes and a few hours began to pass, Imperials seemingly becoming less of a demographic than the Federation soldiers posted here. Most of the Federation troops were [i]probably[/i] from Squad 1, and her blurry vision didn't really help her ability to identify them all. It had been two, no three, long and painful hours spent hanging her head in strange nausea. A thump came about her head, and even without anyone talking to her, Lucia could be seen giggling to herself as she had strange thoughts of many different situations planned out in her mind. Many of these situations were rather over the top, but some felt a bit more achievable. Getting a secret letter or stealing Jean's poems again? She could do that. The thought of it brought her into an uncontrollable drunken giggle. Her tolerance ability was so low that the single large glass of alcohol was enough to put her into this strange state of incomprehensible tipsiness. Slowly, she rose to her feet, staggering as she did so, once she saw a familiar companion lose his company. Michael's conversation seemingly had ended for the first time in...forever. Lucia cursed to herself with a strange giggle before walking over, doing her very best not to stumble over. With a sly and mischievous grin on her slurred face, she went to surprise Michael by approaching him from behind his seat. In a strange fashion, she pushed herself against his back, creating a tight friction between the two as her head went beside his. Knowing that at the very least his serious muse was being interrupted by her strangely forward return, she began to drunkenly stroke Michael's face with her very fingertips, smiling with one eye closed and unable to open from pure laziness.[/color]

[color=A9FF7D][b]"M-Miiiiickeeeeeeeey!"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]She smiled with more sly intent as she pressed herself tightly against him once more with a strong hug. For once, a strange strength had seemingly come out of nowhere since she'd had her drink. Before he could answer, she began to circle around his chair until she was in front of him, quickly placing herself down on top of him as if he were the chair itself. Her back was now to him, but she still sat upon his lap and seemingly coughed a few times, showing her true drunken self once more. Only from one drink...[/color] [color=A9FF7D][b]"I...acshidentally had a driiiiiink. Proteeeeect me p-pleeeeeeeeease."[/b][/color] [color=silver]With a strong giggle, she suddenly let her eyes close and sprawled her arms to her side, her head leaning against Michael's shoulder instinctively as she drifted into a state of half-consciousness, still able to respond and listen, but unable to fully move the rest of her body away. How...strange of her?[/color]

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[sub][color=Silver][i]The Siege of Amone, September 10th - [b]The Vision and the Empty Cartridge[/b][/i][/color][/sub]
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[color=Silver]	The water was hot, very hot to say the least. His hairs upon his arms stood on their seams as he lowered himself into the eerily relaxing bathtub, allowing the warmth to engulf him entirely within seconds. It was blissful and almost surreal to say the least. There was never something so refreshing as sitting within the lovely confinement of this reservoir. Every slow second to creep by gave him more time to adjust to its indulgence and succulency, until Jean finally let out a large exhalation of air and calmed his nerves. Finally, he'd managed to find a piece of mind once his body had fully adapted to the sudden change of heat. Upon a request from one of the staff, his clothing was already being washed and was soon to be done, giving him enough time to really uncover the true potential of the watery bedding he now resided within. His eyes closed and his head rested against the back rim of the casket of water, letting his muscles finally find some ease in tension. Everything around him was silent. The sounds of the great parties downstairs had been notably quieter now that the Imperials had left without as much of a trace left, leaving most of the Federation soldiers alone. A few Imperial stragglers were sitll lolling about without much consideration, but for the Atlantic natives it seemed to only be Squad 1 left, at least with a booked place of slumber here in the White Hart. With that silence in mind, his breaths became nothing more than vaporous echoes that reverberated around the room at immense speed. Slicing into that previous anguish that intoxicated his body with lactic acid amongst other things, the relief was a payoff he'd been needing for months now.

	But, was it really relief as such? On the table across the bathroom was the crooked door, which seemed to whistle in the winds outside. Perhaps a window in his bedroom had been left open, but the shuddering of the door suddenly put his ease of mind out of the way. His eyes darted to one side and he suddenly felt himself drifting away, his gazing, beady eyes patrolling every known corner of the room around him. Every tile on the wall and floor was explored whilst the sound of nearby footprints gave way for his nerves. Someone had stopped by his room to clearly drop something off, but it was most likely the cleaner returning his uniform. Jean, however, didn't feel like that was true. Something felt off about the atmosphere. Why was he this way? Earlier he was enjoying himself all around, even with the embarrassment of his poem being read out, but he couldn't help but shudder in the silence he was left within.

	His head suddenly snapped into a risen position as he seemed to hear a feminine whisper chilling through the air. Jean's face felt pale as he turned around, silently making sure if he had heard such trivial hallucinations properly, and indeed the incoherent whisper happened again. Shock surged down his ankles, and the warmth of the bath felt almost like the coldness of an icecap's peak. Moving his eyes from side to side, rolling them in their strained sockets, his breath grew short. He mustered a short inhales and a few nerved exhalations but still felt like nothing was right. What was this demonic presence suddenly lurking around him, trapping him below the surface of relaxation for all that he was unsure of? Jean's mouth trembled in confusion, his mind growing weary of such strange noises. They didn't sound like the familiar and friendly tones of the staff who worked at the inn, nor did it sound like anyone of any human origin. It felt...other-worldly? Was that a real sort of imagination? Was he losing his mind over nothing? Jean slowly rose himself out of the bath. Without realising it, his body and face was mostly clean, since he'd seemed to have drifted away into a short nap before having heard these strange ethereal chants. Once he was fully out of the bath, Jean quickly dried himself off, his face locked onto the door, where the source of the noise seemed to lead towards. Now dry, he put on the fresh pair of trousers and a shirt, nothing of any major military issue, and slowly began to walk towards the door in his bare feet, quietly hearing the whispers get louder and louder.

	He hesitated. His hands locked around the door-knob to the bathroom connecting to his own bedroom, but he couldn't bring himself to turn the handle. What was holding him back? Was it fear? Was it shame? Was it anxiety? All of them sounded plausible, but he felt a strange empowerment take within his fractured body and the handle began to turn, eventually leading out to bedroom. Jean's face, sure enough, went pale, broken and violently turned into a deathly whitened tone once he saw what was upon his bed. Was it...what was going on?

	Olivia?! Was...what was this machination? It was an illusion, seeing her, waltzing about the room with a gentle hum going about her. She twirled in some sort of fancy flowery dress, patched with small drops of mud and worrying blood stains. Jean's face grew stone cold, out of the pure shock of the apparition before him. This wasn't real, was it? Jean slowly began to walk forward, as carefully as he'd left the bath a second ago, and tried to place his hand upon her shoulder. The room suddenly was plunged into darkness, the only light seemingly illuminating off of her coarse body. As soon as his fingers scraped by her ghostly appearance, her body became overwhelmed with a strange watery substance, breaking off into patches of mud. Her casual clothing instantly shifted into the brash military uniform she'd worn at the start of the war, and spurts opened up in her body, revealing bullet wound after bullet wound. Her eyes became bloodshot and soaked in the tears of her own suffering, a scream coming out at the highest pitch. No one else could hear her delusional scream, being only a fragment of Jean's mind playing him over, but he clutched his ears as the ringing began to persist. Jean himself began to speak, finally uttering words of sheer confusion and panic.[/color]

[color=Aqua][b]"O-Olivia?! D-Don't cry, please. Don't leave me! Stay with me, please sister! Sta-"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]His words were thrown onto deaf ears as the face of Olivia began to crumble, shattering like dried sandstone in the midst of a violent storm. Parts of her flesh seemingly decayed before him, dropping onto the floor as the mind-dependent scene continued to reach its climax. Her scream grew louder, words like [i]join me[/i] or [i]save me[/i] being repeated, over and over again. The trauma of his suffering was finally toying with his mind and Jean tried to reach out. The darkness in his room grew thicker and thicker, his vision more blurred and more muffled as his hearing drew to a final closure. The squeals became nothing more than pain striking through his head, causing him to tremble and clutch his ears, despite there being no real presence of a noise in the real world. Eventually, he collapsed onto one knee, and closed his eyes, before crying out a final phrase to the apparition.[/color] [color=Aqua][b]"I...I'm sorry, don't leave me alone, Olivia!"[/b][/color]

[color=Silver]	And just like that...silence. Jean continued to mutter for a second, unsure of whether or not to open his eyes to whatever sights he'd just experienced. His breath was unending in its pacing, speeding up and croaking slightly as his throat became dry and bruised from his cries. Feeble fingers sat upon the now clean skin of his hands were trembling with every given second that passed. His loneliness settled in and began to sweep him from his feet, making him fall completely onto the other knee and crouch down. Eventually, his eyelids began to flicker open slowly. The light of the room had returned. The silence was now back to its regular self. Had he dreamt a terrible nightmare, or had he actually [i]seen[/i] these illusions caused by the trauma lodging deeper into his mind. Jean's body was in shock, once more. Not from the dangers of the bullets, but from the realisation finally sinking in. All this time, all the time he'd spent wandering the streets of Amone, the carriages of trains, the trenches and hills of Garnia, and the training fields of the army, he'd never fully pondered the fact that he was alone, alone in the world and in the face of immense devastation. All around him, the world had crumbled by every gun sight. Every artillery barrage was enough to wipe him clean, as a mimic of [i]tabula rasa[/i]. Jean looked around the room, seeing it as the normal self it was. His bedsheets were messy and some ornaments must've fallen over in his blind panic. Things that were out of place that hadn't been during the apparition were clear, tumbled onto the floor in barely dense fixations. Jean heard the whisper once more.[/color]

[color=F52713][b]"Don't leave me..."[/b][/color] [color=Silver]He leaned his back against the wall, letting his eyes and hands fumble around aimlessly in his fatigued return to sanity. The traumatised disorder settling in within his mind had suddenly began to whisper its final words, mimicking the soothing tone that was Olivia's past voice. Jean's mind went blank. He instinctively started to move his hard across the room, over to the table just beside the bed. Once he wrapped his hands around the surface and pulled himself to his feet, the whispering continued, begging for him not to leave her. Jean's mind went blank again. He saw the rifle he'd brought with him to Amone, sat on the desk. Quickly, though with much anxiety, he grabbed it in his hands, and began to stare down the barrel. There was nothing but darkness within the muzzle, nothing he could make out. And without thinking, Jean's hands went for the trigger. They closed in on it, getting closer and closer, his breath suddenly growing shorter and shorter until...

[b][i]CLICK.[/i][/b]

	No round came out. Jean's face suddenly dropped once more as the rifle fell from his hands. What the fuck did he just try and do? Had he gone insane? Why...what toll had this war had on him for his instinct to turn to...to that? Jean's face reeked of horror and fear, his body stumbling back onto the bed desperately as he sat, contemplating what on earth he'd just tried to do. There were no tears this time, for the first time in a while, as he simply stared, condemning himself in his own head. Was this trauma? Was this the effect of a coward? Was this what everyone would look down on him for? Could anyone find out about this sudden reaction he had no control over? Jean's hands trembled, his voice speaking to himself in a quiet whisper.[/color]

[color=Aqua][b]"N-No! No no no! No, Jean...D-Don't...don't you...fucking...dare. They...they want me to live. I...I want to live, I want to survive. I want...to find someone and give them what I couldn't have. D-Don't you...fucking...dare."[/b][/color] [color=Silver]His mind rested at ease as he realised the rounds were far from his grasp, having been taken in by the inn-keepers upon arrival to ensure no gun violence truly broke out. Jean's face melted into another state of pale whiteness, him now sitting in silence. His door was slightly ajar open, and he wasn't sure if anyone had listened, but Jean suddenly looked at the mirror across from his bed, staring at the mess he had become.[/color] [color=Aqua][b]"Y-You...don't do it. Ever. They...no...I want to be alive for them. I want to...I just...I want to."[/b][/color]

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