To Love, Once Again

Sera peers into the clean glass windows of the shops, the lights within them dimming as they end work for the day. Instead of seeing the people inside, all Sera can see is the tall streetlights and Lucien, walking next to her, a big, foreboding figure, dressed in his usual dark cloak for going out.

Though not many of the townspeople would recognize him here. Lucien didn't appear before the people much, and when he did, he was covered in armor from head to toe. Most people remembered his face as a handsome young prince, from the parade as he headed out to war.

"Where are we going, King-"

Lucien stops, and Sera stops with him, looking up into his face.

"Lucien"

"What?"

"Call me Lucien, like you used to before"

Tilting her head at him, Sera scrunches her face in confusion, making Lucien think: 'How adorable was this woman and her expressions'. Though none of that showed on his face, still frozen in a perpetual frown.

"But that's not appropriate, I thought?"

"Why can't my Queen address me by name?"

Taking her smaller hand in his, he presses it right over his heart, where Sera can feel each powerful beat, his life moving under her fingers.

"This right has and always will belong to you. You alone."

"O-Oh" Not sure anymore if the heartbeat under her palm or the one thudding in her ears is echoing louder in her head, Sera looks down, blushing.

Sera was the first person to call Lucien by his name, and only by his name, no title attached. The King always called him boy, up until his very last breath, when Lucien was a grown man, back from the war. The Queen used to call him Lu, until she lost all interest in him. Everyone else addressed him by his title.

Only Sera, beautiful Sera, called him by name, turning him from a rough sketch of a person into a full-fledged, living being of flesh and bone.

Sera could feel her eyes swimming around in her head, looking anywhere but at Lucien and his intense gaze that only had her within it.

Even with Lucien being so sincere to her with his every word and action since their talk, it was hard for Sera to understand that he was doing this because he wanted her. Loved her. To break out of the mindset that Lucien didn't want her and was going to marry another woman would take some time..

But, she had promised them both to give them another chance. They both deserved it. Leo deserved having a good father and mother in his life too.

"Lucien"

Sera is surprised to see the tear that trails out of Lucien's right eye.

Following her surprised look to under his eye and touching his face, Lucien sees the wetness on his hand in shock. The emotional fetters had fallen off his heart from the moment he saw Sera. This would be the fourth time in his life that he'd cried, breaking the record twice in the same day.

"Lucien?"

"Say it again."

"Lucien"

Eyes dancing with happiness, Lucien offers her his arm to escort her, and starts walking again, back straighter and taller than it was before.

They veer off between two tall brick buildings, down the entrance to the slums. Sera recognizes exactly where they are going, gasping at the sight before her.

Everything looked so much cleaner now. The slums were no longer the messy, dirt-covered jumble of homes left to itself.

The first time Sera wandered into the slums, she'd been taking a walk, away from the other noble ladies who were visiting as customers to the clothing salon. A Queen was permitted short walks for the sake of fresh air and keeping the limbs fit, but when Sera had asked to exercise that right here, in town, the ladies looked at her like she had gone crazy, pressing a elegant hand to their noses.

After all, who wanted to take a 'walk' in a town filled with filthy commoners you might bump into on the streets, where the stink of horse manure and other unmentionable things were in the air?

It didn't matter to Sera. She hadn't noticed that there needed to be a social difference in status between who walked on the road (commoners) and who were driven by carriage wherever they needed to go(nobles). Sera had lived in both the city and the countryside. It was normal for her to walk in a busy place, dodging the paths of other people and also walking outside, head down, making sure not to step into any gum or dog poop left on the streets.

Though she did understand the aforementioned things were harder to do in a noblewoman's skirts. Pushing past her guard's disapproval, she'd stepped in. Wary guards following behind her, Sera was appalled at what she saw.

Small children that should be in elementary school, fighting over small scraps they'd find in the trash thrown on the streets in the better-off areas of the town, heads matted and gray with dirt, dust smeared on their sunken-in cheeks. Men, most of them missing a limb or two, laying on the ground, grinding up small shards of sparkling green stones and rubbing it on their tongues, eyes glassy and gazing at nothing. Mothers with skirts that had more patches than there was the fabric of the original skirt itself, walking out with their children in tow, to beg for food or money in town, though they were kicked out of most establishments more often than not.

None of the knights had wanted to explain to her why such a place existed, where homes were nothing more than a tin roof and mud bricks stacked on top of each other, susceptible to collapse when it rained.

The slums were the problem no one mentioned, following the old King's principle of ignoring the things he didn't like until they hopefully went away.

As they walk down the street, Sera's hand on Lucien's arm, the new street lights lead the way down the clean road to a larger brick home, upgraded from the fragile mud bricks into proper strong red brick.

Children, big and small, play behind the white wood gates, in the grass lawn in front of the building. Though it looked drastically different from when Sera had seen it last, she knew what this place was.

This was the orphanage, a safe haven for her during her time as Queen, when she could use her title to do actual good and also be away from the other nobles at the same time. A lot of her time and effort had been poured into this place after the end of the Great War. Sera would find out later that at the end of the Great War, there were many children left without homes and families. The lucky ones were sent to orphanages like these, where they would get some scraps and have a bed to sleep on.

"It's Mr. Lu!"

"Hello Mr. Lu!!

Small children are the first to notice them, and with well fed, plump cheeks, faces scrubbed clean and hair groomed, lean over the fence and wave at Lucien.

Lucien grunts a response in return, raising a hand at them in greeting, putting it back down again as swiftly as he'd raised it.