"Deli, shouldn't we check with the orphanage before getting a room? I mean, we should confirm before settling down if-"

"Chopper is never wrong so we don't have to confirm", Deli replied as she proceeded to check in with the old lady at reception.

I wonder if what she said was true. People are dying every day on the border of Ildia. I heard after we had left Ildia that Halen was never recovered. Its people were either captured or killed, though some managed to flee to the capital. I had believed that Halen's destruction was a mistake and the yoke of it fell on both Chopper and me and yet...how can Deli be so confident about Chopper?

"Let's go out after we've settled in", Deli proposed as we were putting our luggage in our room.

Surprisingly, I wasn't bothered by the fact that she booked a single bedroom.

Considering, I had bought nothing with me, except for a coat, I don't suppose there was much for me to do with a room either. Deli had carried a briefcase which now rested on the bed, marking the bed as hers. I supposed I'd be sleeping on either the floor or the sofa.

"It's rather cold here, isn't it?", I remarked casually.

"That's Versailles for you. Sometimes, nights are just too cold...sometimes, they are painfully freezing", Deli seemed lost in thought as she said that. She had begun to unpack.

"Have you been here before, Deli?"

"Yeah, I've been all over the place. You might like it here Seraph. But let's not stay out too late. They have grand balls of the sort you'd have never seen before but you shouldn't stay up for them. At the end of it all, they are utterly meaningless and bland."

"Is that so? Well, I'd at least like to see one in my life, that sort of thing is unheard of back in my village", I answered.

"You still haven't forgotten anything, have you? Seraph, you don't have a village, nor a past, nor a life in that place. It's best if you get used to it. If Lady heard you speaking like that, she'd make you regret it."

"Would she?", I straightened up in my chair, "Hey Deli, what's Lady like?"

"What do you mean? Haven't you seen her?"

"No, I mean, is she strong? She looks like an average old lady to me. I can't see what makes everyone so scared of her."

Deli laughed heartily, "Old lady? You've been looking at something else entirely. She is something scary but we aren't scared of her at all. I guess we've just accepted her authority with all our hearts. But you know she is plenty scary."

"How so? Is she like a vampire?"

Deli stood frozen for a while, then continued weakly, "She could be. She never sleeps, never eats...she's got that look on her, with her long golden hair and eyes like a wolf. She might just be a vampire."

"That wouldn't be too impressive."

"Huh?", Deli looked at me with questioning eyes.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Won't you agree? Lady doesn't seem alive enough to be a vampire", I laughed.

Deli chuckled and her face reddened as if from excitement. It was nice to see her happy.

Later she instructed me to get into some warm clothes because we were heading out.

********************

Deli and I had been walking around arm in arm through Versailles' busy streets. The downtown was like a carnival and I asked her if there was a festival going on. She enjoyed that place greatly and told me that Versailles always had something going on though no one knew what they were celebrating. I did love the air around that place, it looked like a lively bazaar, and people were really welcoming there.

The other parts of Versailles were quite the opposite. The city reeked of nobility and though I could never feel at home in such a place, being with Deli made Versailles pleasant. She dragged me around through every nook and cranny. I didn't think I could get tired from roaming around but I did, I was exhausted through our journey as well but still, I was having a blast. I didn't complain once to Deli.

We sat in a small bar-like café (though in all honesty, that place was far from anything small I've had the chance to see) when the sun hid behind the mountains.

"It's going to be freezing tonight", Deli wrapped her woolen coat around her tighter.

"Are you cold?"

"I'm used to the temperatures. It's fun to be able to feel them, isn't it?"

I didn't know how to answer that.

"Are you tired, Seraph? It was really fun going out with you, I'm sorry I should have asked earlier."

Deli can be surprisingly nice at times, almost as if she is a different person.

"Deli, are we going?", I asked, sipping on my coffee.

She smiled, "In a while."

She looked at the street lamps turning on with a buzz and flicker. The streets were beginning to look vacant.

"People don't stay out too late here. That's because it gets so cold. We should head back too...but just a little longer", she continued to look outside dreamily.

We were sitting on the window's side and the glass was catching our breaths occasionally, blurring our view outside.

After we were done with the payment (which was surprisingly large but Deli paid it like it was chump change, I wonder when she had the time to get so rich), we left the café, which I noticed was called "au Lait".

We were snuggling closer now with the wind having gotten colder. Deli and I walked protectively, our arms locked together and I noticed her pace had gotten faster. I wondered if she was feeling cold. Though her body felt warm and really calm, she wasn't shivering whatsoever and her breath was well-paced too. I could see my breath turning to smoke in the cold but her breath was barely visible, I was astonished at how evenly paced her breathing was despite our walking so fast.

"Deli...?", she had suddenly stopped, clutching my arm strongly, pressing herself against me, as I looked at her expressionless face.

"Seraph...", she muttered, "Don't wander around. Stay still and don't move."

I was perplexed.

She slowly let go of my arm and turned around.

"God, the stench!", she mumbled before turning back to me.

"Seraph, just stay here. There's someone in that alley back there. This doesn't seem right, so I'll go check it out", she then held my face in her hands and looked straight into my eyes, bringing her face closer to mine so that I could feel her breath, "Don't move. Just stay right here and I'll be right back."

She then left towards the alley and quickly disappeared. I was still wondering what had just happened and where she'd gone off to when I noticed what looked like a palace to me. Though it was far too small to be a palace, I realized soon that it was a ballroom. "Dernière" was written in a really romantic pattern at the entrance. It was one of those places which Deli had called "utterly meaningless and bland".

Naturally, I didn't just abandon the post where Deli had stationed me. I waited there eagerly for her to return. Though she never came back and I noticed the alley was absolutely silent, with no hints of movement whatsoever. I went over to look, hesitatingly of course, not because I was afraid but because Deli told me not to move.

As I suspected, the alley was vacant. I tried calling her name a few times but there really was no one and nothing there. That, I decided, left me with no other choice. I looked at Dernière, maybe Deli had gone there. It was right next to the alley so there is a possibility I could get something on her. Anyway, that's the excuse I gave to myself as I passed through the doors of Dernière.