Lazare continued walking through the forest, still feeling a bit uneasy. They were almost ready to go check in on Emilia as quickly as they could when someone appeared in front of them.
"Finlai!" Lazare exclaimed, trying to stop their mouth from twisting into a grimace. Given her face, they hadn't succeeded.
"What are you doing here, Lazare?" She asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Just, you know, appreciating the beauty," They said, waving at the trees around them. Finlai narrowed her eyes at them. Apparently she didn't believe them, which was typical. Lazare was about to make a weak excuse and disappear when they got alerted to someone moving near Emilia's house. It might just be a mailman or someone walking their pet, but better safe than sorry. "But I gotta get going now, so… nice seeing you!" They snapped their fingers and disappeared, reappearing in front of Emilia's house– invisible, of course.
Emilia watched water leak out onto the floor, figuring that there was probably water under the bucket from it dripping over the sides. Unless there was a crack in the bucket- but that was unlikely.
She draped the wet cloth over the edge of the bucket and went to get a dry. She was probably, subconsciously, trying to drag this on to avoid something. She could’ve brought up another couple of cloths, or she could just clean this up later. Though she definitely hadn’t been struck with the inspiration to save the world.
No Emilia … stop thinking about that.
She cursed herself a third time. Why did everything have to be thrown off all of a sudden? She needed her aunt to return faster.
Lazare glanced around the street, looking for whatever had triggered the sensor. They let out a huge sigh when they saw that it was just someone walking their dog. The dog had probably gotten too close or something. Lazare turned around, ready to leave again when they saw a group of very suspicious people walking towards Emilia's house. They quickly turned themself visible again and took a few steps back towards the door. It didn't take long for the group to notice them, and it took even less time for them to recognize Lazare.
"Hey, it's you!" One of the followers yelled, pointing at them. "We got ourselves a jackpot!"
"Uh, hi. I was just leaving, if you don't mind." Lazare gave them an apologetic smile and took a step towards them. With a terrific screeching sound, a dozen swords got unsheathed and pointed at their face. Lazare flung their hands up and stepped back.
"So what are you going to do?" They asked, looking around at the followers. "Kill us or take us hostage?"
"Unfortunately for you, the boss wants you alive." The follower sneered at them. Lazare made a split-second decision to go along with them for now. This could be a chance to see if Emilia could take care of herself against the followers. They'd be there all along, just in case something happened.
Emilia finished soaking up the water on the floor and went back to cleaning the window.
She expected her aunt to not want her to still be here when she returned. Though, it couldn’t technically be all her fault if she didn’t know how much time she had to clean the thousands of window panes. She also expected her aunt to want a clean house- clean meaning that everything was where she left it.
With the idea of Lazare and their prankster friends, or whoever they were, still coming to trash the house- Emilia worried a bit. If something happened here, out of her own control, she’d never be able to repay her aunt. So she just had to hope that the house wouldn’t randomly blow up or something.
Lazare let their hands get tied behind their back and stood patiently while the followers discussed how to go about getting Emilia. They probably thought that their voices were soft, but Lazare could hear every word of it. They had no idea why the followers were thinking so much about this– if it were them, they'd just break down the door or something. The followers finally decided on ringing the doorbell first, because:
"That way, we don't have to go looking through the house," one of the followers reasoned, looking around at the rest of them, who were all nodding. "And if that doesn't work, we can always break the door down." There was another round of enthusiastic nodding, and the followers broke their huddle. One put their hand on Lazare's shoulder, maybe to keep them from making a run for it or something. And another one pressed a small knife against their side, which was overkill, in Lazare's opinion. The leader– or who Lazare guessed was the leader– reached out and rang the doorbell. From what had happened so far, Lazare was pretty sure Emilia would ignore the doorbell. That might actually be a good thing.
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