𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞; eugene roe ✔

PART TWENTY ONE

Dedicated to finishing this and then writing a fic about Liebgott as I cannot bring myself to finish the other stories I have on here <3

Word count; 2,319

Valentina

Seeing us, strolling together down the street, could have anyone thinking that we were in another time. Most recently, those evenings when the officers would host balls and parties, and everyone would flock to these mansions they could never dream of owning. More distantly, the winter nights where it was dark by 3pm and you would watch the young adults returning from clubs, swinging together in the haze of booze. We were more or less the same. However, we were not attending a celebration and alcohol had not touched one of us.

I walked with Emilia, listening as she chatted more about the conspiracy between Sascha and Perconte, interjecting every now and then how she should focus on finding her own husband instead of linking others - someone who would care much more about her gossip than I would. Behind us were the rest, arms linked as they giggled and coversed about a soldier who they saw fall into the lake. Apparently, the man had heard Metilda talking on Sascha's tearoom balcony and, as he looked up, tripped over a loose plank on the peer, resulting in him smashing face first into the water.

"I don't think the poor man could swim. He looked like a dying duck."

"The fact is, when I asked where Sascha was going to earlier, she did all she could to distract me." Emilia drew my attention back onto her. "However the dress she wanted my opinion on was just splendid."

I nodded absent-mindedly, "What is so wrong if Sascha is engaged with Perconte?"

"Nothing, nothing at all." She denied. "But I want to know why she's being secretive about it."

"Maybe so you wouldn't interrogate her as you are?"

Emilia pouted, "I would question her anyway. It is my job."

"Why is it so cold!" Alice exclaimed, clinging onto her biceps with her fingers.

"It is the middle of summer! How are you cold?" countered Petra.

Emilia looked behind us and added her own comment before turning back and nudging my arm, "This is it, isn't it?"

I followed her gaze. The town hall was its own monument; a building centered on its own, surrounded by tiled roads and brick structures there after. At the top of it was a small tower, a magnificent copper bell dangling from it. We were approaching it from a street to its right, observing the lack of lit windows and soldiers. In fact, on the entire journey to it we had not spotted one person, barring ourselves.

"Are you sure that message did not have a reason?"

I didn't know who asked the inquiry but replied all the same, "Quite sure."

"Maybe there is an officer inside?" Emilia whispered into my ear.

"Nevertheless," I strutted forward. "What good is there in being afraid?"

Someone gushed, another giggled, everyone hurrying on after me. Emilia, by my side as quickly as she wasn't, hooked onto my arm. When we reached the building, I shielded my eyes with my hands, peeping through the window of the main door - although the sign which depicted the hours in which the town hall was open was created by men who frankly no longer existed, we were still cautious to our out-of-hours arrival.

The door rung its own bell as we entered. Meant only as a greeting chamber, the room was small and had two doors on the rear wall, each leading to their own hallways. I had only explored this far once, and that was with Herr Weinder. Metilda drifted over to the waiting settees, retreiving a lonesome magazine on the coffee table. She laughed at the headline, pointing at it and mocking it.