The Brothel Brawl

It had all started with a conversation about how Simone never got to leave the tower. There were far too many reasons that she shouldn’t leave, the worst being that a powerful fae lord was after her. Still, Dala confronted Lewis over it, and despite being a small rascal of a child, she was very pushy. She knew just how to push his buttons and raise his temper. Since he couldn’t risk killing the girl, he relented.

“Fine. Just a few hours. And only to the closest town. I want regular check ins with magic. You should know how to do that, right?” It was entirely possible that Lewis was being overcautious, but the reality was that he couldn’t risk losi-…her getting lost. She was his responsibility, after all.

Lewis spent the free time he had wandering about the keep’s walls. It had been a long time since he had been alone. In the end, he decided on a nice hot bath, and relaxed as best he could. His mind, though, constantly wandered to Simone and her safety. He hoped that Dala was keeping a keen eye on her. Those two….they could get into some kind of trouble…

Simone did a little dance as Dala won over Lewis. “Girl time!” She was excited as she grabbed her cloak. Before they left she jumped on Lewis and gave him a hug. “I’ll be good I promise! I’ll stay in Dala’s sights!”

They went to town and she got excited over the shops, over the food, and the people. Lewis gave her an allowance to spend in town and she was giddy. The book shop was her favorite place and she spent a good amount of time there. Dala showed Lewis Simone in a corner with a pile of books. “See, she’s fine.” The ten-year-old sounded proud of herself.

Three hours went by and what Lewis walked back in on… was hysterical depending on how you looked at it. “Don’t wince ya big baby,” Dala had a healing kit as she used the ointment on bruises and cuts that Simone had.

The color drained from Simone’s face as soon as she saw Lewis and she tried to hide from Lewis using a blanket.

Lewis’ time alone had been surprisingly well spent. It wasn’t that he didn’t mind having Simone around all the time, but it was nice to be alone with one’s thoughts. It was a rare moment for him since they had met. He severely missed this time alone, and wondered if this might be something he needed more of. He loved Simone dearly, but being together all the time probably wasn’t something either of them wanted or needed.

As he ascended back to his tower, he got a notice that Dala and Simone had returned. That gave him a rather confusing, fluttery feeling in his chest, which he proceeded to ignore.

However, what he was met with was a rather beaten and bruised Simone.

“What…the hell happened?” he asked, coming over to throw the blanket off of Simone. He looked at Dala. “Is this your idea of keeping her safe?”

Dala looked up at Lewis, “Well, everything was fine and then Simone decided she wanted a career as a cage fighter.”

“THAT IS NOT…” She opened her mouth as Lewis took the blanket off of her. “I CAN EXPLAIN!”

“Simone got jealous,” Dala said lightly. “Should have seen her Lewis… She’s an absolute–”

“I CAN EXPLAIN!!!!” Simone was blushing and looked away.

“No, no let me. So we’re going past this brothel called the Canary. Somehow Simone here overhears two of the brothel workings talking about Lewis Dusk’s penis. I’m TELLING you, Lewis… Simone was like a wild animal.”

“I… I!” Simone blushed.

“She was jealous.”

“I WAS NOT!”

“She was green with envy!”

Simone was almost crying now as she tried to deny it.

“Anyways, Simone jumps them and starts to rip their hair out and beat them up like she’s been doing it her whole life. The brothel owner Helga I think she said her name is… Reported us to the guards because Simone just wouldn’t stop. Of course, I got a snack and sat on the closest barrel so I could watch all this go down. Once the guards were coming though I had to fight to get Simone off of them and portal us back here.”

Simone was pouting, “I got beat up because I beat them up first.”

Lewis had crossed his arms, staring in anger at the start of the tale, but as Dala continued through each action, his anger changed to confusion. All of that over a woman that he used to see mentioning something about him in passing. Was it even anything relevant? The look of bewilderment was apparent on his face, because Simone saw it and started to pout.

“I don’t understand,” Lewis said as he reaffirmed his stance and glared at her. “You got into a fight over a body part?” He didn’t understand why she would go to such lengths. Dala said something about jealousy, but that didn’t make any sense. Why would Simone be jealous? He stopped going like she asked. Not that he derived any real pleasure from going in the first place.

Still, something about the story of Simone beating up a whole punch of people over him was…a little exciting. He couldn’t quite understand why, but he was feeling a little hot and bothered by the whole thing.

“Should I…go kill them all?” he asked. He really didn’t care either way, as long as Simone was happy.

Mone looked up at him and tilted her head, “Lewis… If you overheard someone making vulgar statements about my body… What would you do?” Her gray eyes were watching him. “Or if let’s say Chess made a comment about wanting to grab my breasts…”

She knew how Lewis would react. She had seen him get jealous over Jack just talking to her.

Dala excused herself saying that she wanted to leave them alone now that they were talking about private things. “No! I’ve done enough I think… I took a clump of hair out of the blonde one. And the redhead! I broke her nose!” Simone declared proudly. “I want to be able to protect and defend you too even if I’m not good at it…”

Lewis blinked at her statement, and without hesitating made a rather bold yet expected statement. “I’d kill anyone who lies a hand on you. Without questi-” He paused and thought about it for a moment. “Oh. I see. That’s jealousy. That’s what it does.” The fact that it was described in such a simple way seemed to drive the whole point home.

“Well, I think that settles it then…I should go kill them, then.” He started to grab his daggers, and Simone put a hand over his.

“No, that’s still…too extreme. But maybe you can take out that frustration another way?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

“I…don’t think I understand what you mean…?” Lewis responded, giving her a puzzled look.

“You…have a lot to learn,” Simone said with a sigh. “I’ll lend you one of my books..” She blushed. “Maybe you’ll get the idea then.”

When They Wilt

Lewis had gotten her beautiful lilacs to show their new relationship. They had only just committed to it. They would try and that made her happy. She took the very best care of her lilacs and got them a pretty vase. She was very proud of her lilacs often moving them from window to window of their tower to follow the sun. At night she put it in Lewis’s bedroom window so they would get the first rays of sunlight.

This went on for a month. Never did they wilt and Mone was convinced he got her magic flowers. She couldn’t tell the difference and she would smell them as she carried them carefully. Snowball happened not long after she got them and even he helped her pick the right spot.

Today was the first day Lewis would be gone for a few days. “Please be careful? I wouldn’t want something bad happening to you,” she looked away shyly with a blush and kissed his cheek before waving him off.

Simone continued doing what she was doing, including switching the water out… But after a few days, she noticed that they were starting to wilt and she sat in front of them. “I don’t understand… Did I break them somehow?” She laid on the bed and stared at them. They had started to lose their color and tears were forming in her eyes.

“I broke Lewis’s present to me.”

Snowball was trying to get her to leave the room. She hadn't been eating since she realized the flowers were wilting and Snowball knew Lewis wouldn't be happy.

It was unusual for Lewis to take multi-day jobs, but he had been trying to avoid them since the incident with Simone and the dream dive. Something had awakened between the two of them, and they were still working on figuring out how to navigate it. That, and with his newfound knowledge of the fae lord and Simone’s history…well, he didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone for long periods of time.

He had gotten her the lilacs as a gift. She had liked them so much that he had started to replace them at the first signs of wilting. Seeing her take such delicate care of the flowers was heartwarming. Of course, he had no idea of knowing what that feeling was, or why he was feeling it, but it made her happy and that was all that mattered.

So when he came home days later, he found things were…oddly bleak. The lights were out, and it looked like the castle help had not been in days. Normally, Simone took care of the chores, but she knew that if she needed help that Lord Raith had plenty of staff available. Yet, it seemed like nothing had been done.

“Strange,” Lewis said as he walked around. Snowball was fluttering about, angrily tweeting that Lewis had been gone too long at that Simone was-

“Locked away in her room? Why?” Lewis looked at the bird.

Snowball let out a flurry of harsh tweets, and puffed up.

“Look, I know. It wasn’t my choice. I even brought her.. I don’t know, chocolate? The lady at the store said that’s what you’re supposed to do. I don’t get it bu-”

The bird tweeted in response.

“Gods damn it, bird. I’m working on it. I’m going now.” He straightened up his shirt, and barged into her room.

“Simone, I’m back.”

Simone was laying on her bed just staring at the wilting flowers. When Lewis stormed in she jumped off the bed and hid the flowers behind her. She looked like a wreck, her clothes were in a tad loose on her thanks to not eating, and she looked scared. “Lew-LEWIS! Welcome home?” She gave a nervous smile.

“I’ll be down in a while~” She called and pushed the flowers behind the view of her chair at the desk she had. “You can leave my room if you want…” She said it lightly knowing he probably wasn’t going to leave. “You have to be really busy. Definitely too busy to hang out with me right now…”

She was lying and the heartbreak was seeping through that she had broken the present he had gotten her. She loved her lilacs and she had no idea they were just regular flowers that Lewis was replacing. She was none the wiser at how sweet Lewis was being about it.

“I was just thinking about going downstairs and cleaning! And ordering breakfast…” Only it was well past dinner time now.