Chapter Text
The Montelli's lion cub is ferocious, Cantarella thinks, as she watches Carlotta Montelli sag against a wall, heaving ragged breaths, gloved hand pushing against the rough stone. Her gun held tight in the other, ungloved. It starts raining after the ball, the pitter-patter against Cantarella’s parasol staves off the quiet. Still not loud enough to drown out the sounds of Carlotta’s dress and heels scraping against the alleyway as she walks on. Blood runs from the wound on her side, dyeing her white dress wine red. The little Montelli hasn’t noticed Cantarella yet, but perhaps she should be alerted lest Carlotta’s diamonds lodge themselves in her temple.
“You dropped this,” Cantarella says, offering the other glove of Carlotta’s pair, adorned with an intricate opal that shines in the dim streetlamp. The ragged breathing stops when Carlotta's gaze turns to her, the corner of her mouth dripping blood even as the rain washes it away.
A cough wracks itself through her lithe frame, but her voice comes out stern and gritty, “Who are you?”
Cantarella considers for a moment the image they make now, the head of the Fisalias under her parasol and the second daughter of the Montellis, wounded, gun pointed at her. They make for a pretty frame in the rain, she realizes.
“A concerned passerby,” she replies, walking forward with sure steps. She must look like a ghost, with how the rain never touching her heels, the humid in the air bracing itself around her, her white parasol floating almost on its own.
Carlotta eyes her warily, hand still on her gun but her finger not on the trigger, to Cantarella immense relief. Her hand outstretched, offering the glove to Carlotta. After a moment of internal debate, the younger woman snatches it to her chest, but not without the distrusting look in her eyes.
They stare at each other in silence for a moment, Carlotta too alert to turn her back, Cantarella with unfinished business.
Carlotta’s consciousness is slipping away from her, the woman’s white lashes struggling to keep open against the rain and her blood loss. The poison is making it worse; Cantarella can almost taste it, can feel it in a way inherent to her Forte where it runs in Carlotta’s veins.
“Your business is done here.” Carlotta says finally, somewhat wildly, hoping her own loud voice will startle herself awake, “Leave while I still let you.”
When the taller woman opens her mouth to say something, Carlotta’s knees give out, her hand scrambles for useless purchase on the wall. Carlotta closes her eyes for the fall, bracing herself for the pain of the rocky ground. Instead she finds herself in a warm embrace around her waist, the sounds of rain quietened by the taller woman’s parasol covering both of them, her head on the woman’s chest. She smells… nothing, not even the rain around them touched this woman, she does not smell of fresh earth, of rainwater, of air. Was Carlotta in a better state, this would have immediately started sounding alarms in her head; for there is such a rumour within the Fisalias, that those who mastered the arts of poison will turn their body into one. And what better poison than scentless and tasteless?
But the arm around her waist is too gentle, the white parasol covering her from the rain just as she had wished just moments prior and the woman whispers, voice sweet and silky, “Rest. I’ll take care of you.”
A blink, and Carlotta sinks into unconsciousness.
The night is still young, it seems. Cantarella heaves a sigh and lets her jellyfish summon float the umbrella on its own, her other arm gently loops under the shorter woman’s legs and lifts her with no apparent effort.
The way to Porto Veno is long, even with Resonance Beacons. The healing at the beacon does nothing for the poison coursing through Carlotta’s vein, however, so Cantarella calls for Sebastian and ignores the way he startles at the Montelli woman in her arms and rushes back to prepare her quarters.
Later, when the she was tucked in bed and the antidote administered, the Montelli fell into a deep sleep. Only the occasional twitch of her trigger finger and the slight turns of her head indicates she’s alive. Cantarella dismissed Sebastian and decided to lounge in the bedroom, to keep an eye on her condition, of course. Nothing more.
Cantarella thinks of her white hair then, crystalized into fractures, pristine as glass, hard as diamonds. They shine under the yellow light of the ballroom, her gloved hand on a woman’s waist, the curve of her mouth too sharp, too stiff.
As the head, she does not think of her family as disposable despite losing them to the Threnodian’s whispers. Only that for some, the whispers are merely bolstering their ambitions, blooming under Cantarella’s apparent absence from the castle. For those, she has no sympathy for.
So she stood and did nothing as Carlotta threw the ball into a riot, bullets of gems sparkling the night, making a show of her dance with death. Cantarella does nothing as her traitorous peoples fall, then blends into the night the same time the white hem of Carlotta’s skirt disappears behind the gates.
Cantarella would not claim herself the only one in her family to have wrenched their will free from the Threnodian’s whispers. Except, other than her, the rest are willingly following mere suggestions, grappling for power under pretenses, emboldened by their peoples’ mass hysteria. It’s not that she’s helpless to stop it - Cantarella only decided she has more important issues to tend to in order to address the root of the problem. Like how her body is faring after her Second Awakening for one, and freeing Ragunna’s Imperator, for another. It’s difficult not to develop an all-seeing eye after seeing what she’s seen and knowing what she’s learned.
Perhaps the little Montelli might find her a terrible Head of her House, what with her undying loyalty to her own family. Cantarella huffs a laugh at the thought, and waits.
Carlotta sleeps blissfully, a good dream with details slowly evading her grasp as she gains consciousness. She opens her eyes to a strange ceiling of a frilly canopy and the sound of paper turning. Alertness immediately snapped into her frame and she sits up straight, the cover pooling around her lap revealing a freshly bandaged wound and the taste of something bitter in her mouth. Someone fed her an antidote, if the absence of lightning scorching through her sides is anything to come by.
“Good nap?” Cantarella asked, and she felt rather see how fast Carlotta turned her head to where she sits, lounging on the couch with a teacup in her hand and a book in her lap.
“You-” She starts, before the sight of the literal castle this stranger presumably lives in, what with the way she lounges like she owns the place. “Who are you?”
Only when the words come out of her mouth did Carlotta reflect, rather regrettably, on her antagonizing tone. This was the most inelegant she had act yet, not even on her worst dispatches did she lose composure. For all that she is deadly as the Montelli’s Executioner, Carlotta has always work alone, her Grandfather with his silvered frame behind his desk lamp as he assesses her work in solitude. Her own maids patch her wounds, tight-lipped lest they end up under a gun nozzle made of glass. Carlotta finds she has no idea how to treat this strange benefactor who did not cower at her threats. Perhaps she truly is a ghost and no material violence can hurt her.
“Like I said. A concerned passerby.” The woman said, mirth in her eyes and a small smile on her lips, slightly damp with the tea she just sipped. Now she's staring. Perhaps the poison addled her mind more than she thought.
“I’ll keep my lips sealed about tonight.” Cantarella tilts her head towards her side. Startled, Carlotta looks to the opened window to find the rain has stopped and the moonlight streaming prettily through stained glass. It has only been a few hours since she passed out as most, thankfully. The woman continues, “No need to be so on guard. If I wanted to dispose of you, I’d already done so.”
Taking a deep breath, unsettled to find herself in a situation she has no control over, Carlotta asked, “Fine. Then where am I?”
“You’ll find out once you leave,” the woman stands slowly, moving with a grace Carlotta would be jealous of if her eyes aren’t busy staring. She makes her way next to Carlotta’s bed and she holds her breath when fingers lift the edge of the blanket, taking care to not expose her legs to the cool air.
“I’m glad the wound is healing up nicely,” she said, and Carlotta caught the distinctive jagged black mark on the tip of the woman’s tongue, “How is your body feeling?”
This must be the one who treated her with an antidote as well then. She assess the benefits of lying to find none, “My vision is a little dizzy and there’s a dull pain, but better than before.”
“Good. That will go away on its own once you’ve eaten and moved around.”
The woman moves to stand, and Carlotta silently berate herself for the urge to follow her warmth. It’s her traitorous body still healing, she said to herself as the woman makes her way to the door.
“There’s food and tea on the table. I trust you won’t need anything else for tonight.” The lilac haired woman said, her hand on the door ready to push.
Carlotta stared at the half-drank cup of tea and the book lied abandoned at the sofa where the woman last sat, “You’re just going to leave?”
“I am,” and there’s that smile again, amused but soft, “Because how else are you going to escape out the window with me here?”
The door closes before Carlotta can retort. She can feel her ears heat a little as the woman’s faint laughter scratches at the side of her ear. Perhaps the window being wide open wasn’t unintentional. And perhaps her recovering mind wasn’t too discreet when she glance at the window like a frightened rabbit. So she eats but refuse to drink the tea. Just to be petty.
Her hand lies on the window sill before something came over her. Huffing, Carlotta marches to the couch where the woman lied on earlier and snatches her abandoned book, then nimbly jumps out the window and glides away under the moonlight.
Only when she’s fully settled in her own bed, having send her report and the book lying on her nightstand, did Carlotta realize she had just returned from the east of Thessaleo Fells.
Porto Veno Castle.