The Mortal And The Wicked-- ONC 2023

Chapter 1; A dreadful beginning indeed

Eleven years later...

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Baron Edward Ferdinand Billingsly the Third had been a rather nervous looking man, and even now in death one could say much the same. For laying there within the coffin he looked as though he might spring out of it at any moment if someone laughed too hard or spoke far too loudly.

At least, it was what Lucy imagined he would do anyway.

She hadn't known him, not truly. And as she gazed now upon his lifeless face, waxy in the pallor of death, she wondered if that was for the best. It was easier this way. She would be able to forget him in time, placing this entire ordeal behind her. 

She could live on, perhaps, until the memory of his death was some distant nightmare. Yet she wondered if perhaps those around her might be able to do the same; for throughout the room she heard the various whispers, the words cutting into her like small knives. Waiting for her to bleed.

"How tragic.... So young...."

"You'd think she would cry a little harder."

"...Arranged marriage..."

"Such a waste..."

Edward and Lucy had been promised in marriage in June of the previous year; both of marriageable age, their respective guardians had found it to be a suitable match. Yet the two were perhaps... Less than enthused about the entire matter.

Lucy in particular.

 He had been, she supposed, somewhat handsome in nature. Though his looks felt awkward as well, as if he were still growing into them. His head of blond hair having a perpetual cowlick towards the back of it, his brown eyes framed by wire spectacles that slipped at a constant rate down his nose. And though Edward was not a bad man by any means, he was rather egregiously dull in nature; tall and rather gangly in appearance, he spoke in a nervous tone about the most boring things imaginable.

It had irritated her greatly.

Indeed, she could recall it clearly even now, the first time in which their grandmothers had introduced them, leaving the two to sit within a stuffy parlor to make pleasant conversation whilst they schemed about wedding décor.

She recalled then how the Baron had scarcely made eye contact, seeming to spend the entirety of their visit shifting within his chair, his responses to her questions all muttered out nervously. 

"Do you have any hobbies, Baron?" she had asked, some small part of her enjoying the manner in which he squirmed.

His face had gone rather red then, as it tended to do when anyone addressed him, and with his eyes fixated firmly upon the floor he had stuttered out some reply or another. "I.. Well, erm, yes. All barons have hobbies. I, uh, rather enjoy-- that is to say, I generally partake in studies of, uh," Lucy thought that had he the option to melt into the floor in that very instant he would have done so in that instant. "The common earthworm?"

She had only nodded then, uncertain if she wished to ask what sort of studies he had discovered pertaining to the common earthworm, doubting she might be able to stand such a conversation. All the while avoiding his own pressing questions about her own hobbies-- for a lady of a stature such as her could hardly describe her need for pickpocketing and how it served to make her life far more interesting.

Still, by the end of it when he had given her an awkward parting kiss upon the hand she had deftly slipped a rather ornate ring from his finger, pocketing it before anyone could notice its absence.  

It was this ring now that she slipped back into the casket, drawing herself away from the past and into the present where everyone within the room now looked at her with some measure of pity. For she was the poor girl who's fiancé had tragically died several months before their to-be wedding.

It's better this way, she thought once more, as though making some attempt to convince herself. For she was sorry he had died, truly. And though perhaps death was the more dramatic way in which to end an engagement, it had been the one the fates had granted. In time the guilt would fade and the manner of the Baron's death would be locked away within herself forever.

And never once would anyone imagine that it had all been Lucy's fault. 

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