The Crown's Obsession (WN)

Lucy slowly stood up from her place, and she walked closer to where Ruby continued to hang on the gallows. The intensity of the rain increased, but it didn't deter her intention. She climbed up the wooden stairs and then came to stand next to Ruby's body.

What she saw right now felt unreal. It was only two or three hours ago since she had last spoken and hugged Ruby. Her hands shook with fear by the turns of the events, and she noticed Ruby's shoes peeking beneath her dress, suspending along with her body.

Bringing her hands forward, she touched Ruby's legs, it felt like she was in a bad dream that she just wanted to wake up from, but every drop of rain that fell on Lucy was a reminder of her being part of the real world.

Unable to control her tears, she cried even more that were camouflaged by the thunder and the rain. Not able to stand her ground anymore, Lucy's knees gave away, and she sat on the scaffold next to Ruby's body.

Lucy then felt someone's hand on top of her head, and startled, she looked to her side to find Calhoun, who stood next to her.

The heavy rain seemed to have stopped, or so she thought because Calhoun was holding an open umbrella above her. Seeing Calhoun here, Lucy's eyes welled up, and she broke down to more tears.

"She's gone...Nana's gone," she said to him while looking back at the maid.

Calhoun had a grim expression on his face.

It wasn't too hard for him to track down where Lucy was even though it had been hard to fly in the rain. The world was a cruel place for the weak and innocent. Only the strongest, cunning or the wisest could survive here while pushing the weaker ones to the corner. When Calhoun had arrived at the Hawthrone castle, in the beginning, he had assumed Lucy was similar to the rest of the royal family members. But now that he closely looked at her, the girl had been born in the wrong place. Maybe it was best for her to get married and stay away from her family.

"Why?" he heard her question, and that single word held a lot of questions from Lucy.

"It's the world that we live in...that is faulty," replied Calhoun.

Unlike him, where he had grown with people's hate towards him and his mother, Lucy had never experienced such things. At least not one that was as painful as seeing a woman she cared about hanging in front of her now.

"She didn't do anything wrong," said Lucy, her eyebrows drawing in together, and she looked at Ruby through her glassy eyes. "Not even once. Why was she punished? What warranted her to this?"

It was easy to tell Lucy about what was going on, but then he doubted a girl like her would be able to digest her family's true nature. Right now, she looked broken. Her eyes had turned empty, just like how his eyes had turned empty when he was a young boy—how strange, thought Calhoun to himself. That he was here, holding an umbrella over the girl's head, whose mother was the reason why his very own mother had been thrown out of the castle.

"This is something you will need to ask them. The ones who have put her in this situation and condition," answered Calhoun. When the rain stopped, he put the umbrella aside and said, "Your family will be looking for you."

Lucy shook her head. She didn't want to go back, not like this.

"Pain isn't forever. It will fade one day. All you need to do is to believe that she is in a better place now than she was before," stated Calhoun, offering comforting words to the girl whom he was now accepting as his sister. "That is what I believe when it comes to my mother."

"Like Heaven?" asked Lucy, looking away from Ruby to look at Calhoun before she stood up.

"Yes, Heaven," agreed Calhoun.

Lucy wiped the tears from her face, and she nodded her head. "Because that is where all good people go and are safer than here," she whispered. "Do you think...we can bury her?" She knew if she were to ask anyone else in the castle, not only her request would be denied, but she would also be reprimanded for it.

"Let's have her buried somewhere safe, and where you can visit her," said Calhoun, and he walked towards Ruby and brought the body on the ground.

Lucy stepped backwards, and even though it had been only a little while, she could smell the stench of death that surrounded the maid.

Calhoun was the one to carry the dead maid, and Lucy walked beside him, following him. They walked away from the town and entered the road in time to find the royal carriage that Calhoun had arranged to arrive here so that they could get back to the castle. The carriage moved towards the Hawthrone's castle, but before it could reach the place, they took a detour inside the forest, and the coachman pulled the carriage on Calhoun's order.

When they came to stand in front of the cemetery, Lucy looked perplexed and asked, "T-this is the cemetery of the royal family. Is it alright to bury her here?"

If her family ever came to find out about this, they would be furious at both her and Calhoun. "It is fine. You just have to make sure not to mention her resting in here. Can you do that?" he questioned her.

Lucy tore her eyes from Ruby to look at Calhoun, who looked back at her with a calm expression. "Okay," she whispered. "It will be a secret between us. But all the graves are occupied."

To prepare another grave would take time, and right now, they didn't have time. As rebellious as Lucy wanted to behave with her family, she didn't forget the consequences. By sentencing Ruby to her death, her family members were making a statement of what could happen if she were to cross another line that they had drawn.

"That isn't an issue," murmured Calhoun before he looked around and said, "Do you know where your relative Silvanus Grost's grave here?"

"Silvanus?" asked Lucy, and she raised her hand in the direction of where his grave was. The cemetery was built for the use of the royal family members and people who were related to them.

Calhoun had heard from one of the ministers of how he had mistreated his mother when she was alive. He walked to the grave, and he then pushed open the coffin lid before throwing the man out of his grave and on the ground to be replaced by Ruby.

Seeing this, Lucy's eyes widened. Calhoun said, "He needs to get some fresh air. I will go put him somewhere else," and he dragged the body while leaving Lucy to stand in front of the grave.

Taking a step forward, she touched the grave and a tear slipped her eyes.

Things would not be the same without Ruby's existence.