On the Brink [Prada/Cetus]

 


It was all so vivid. It was that grand expedition to the Unknown Lands, a task that befell many of Fiore's most esteemed and promising sorcerers as they all took upon the duty of uncovering that mysterious, uncharted territory's secrets. The deep green wilderness was enormous and stretched across the land for miles, and the expansive cerulean sky was speckled with small puffs of smokey white clouds. A large, glistening lake in the center of the woods, and tall, gorgeous mountains sticking to the uneven horizon in distant grasslands. Beasts that were only myths were found that day, and some of them too beautiful to kill. He remembered it all so vividly. The way the trees rustled against one another, the splash of lake water against that sandy shore, the way the wind felt against his hair. He remembered it all so clearly... and yet all he could really see was Vandrad approaching him with this twisted, sick smile twinged with bloodlust. He was like a force of nature that walked up to him, eager to end such a gifted life such as himself. He kept walking closer, and closer, and closer, and...


Louie suddenly threw himself up from his pillow, his red bedsheet sliding down his naked chest and quick, short breaths leaving his nostrils. His body was caked in a cold sweat, and as soon as he came to, he reached up to touch the center of his face. Louie felt nothing. The cut that was there had long since healed since the expedition, and yet he could sense its presence every night. He had been having these nightmares for a while now, reliving what happened at the expedition a short while ago, and never finding the opportunity to find a resolution. Although the cut had been healed and his skin had returned to its usual flawless, unblemished state, he hadn't been able to shake off... whatever this feeling was for the longest time, and he was losing more and more sleep because of it. A very short amount of time had passed since the expedition, but Louie hadn't stepped foot back into the Fairy Tail guild hall since then, and he wasn't sure why he hadn't. He wasn't ashamed and he surely wasn't afraid, but he felt almost too angry to go back now. He wanted to see Vandrad dead, and he wanted to be the one responsible for it, and yet he wanted to take his mind off of that event and get into a better headspace since it was all so exhausting. With an angry look on his face, Louie made a fist and slammed it into the headboard of his bed, putting a sizable dent in the wood as all the rage in his nightmare bled into his reality. "Goddammit...!"


The next morning, Louie's first stop was a particularly expensive restaurant with a formal dress code. The last few days had been busy for him, since he wanted to distract himself from his nightmares with the things he usually liked to do. Partying, exploring, eating good food—that sort of thing. It seemed that every day he was closer and closer to going to the guildhall and putting that dog of a man down, and yet thoughts of caviar and oysters reeled him in quicker than his bloodlust could. Despite putting away his desire to confront Vandrad for the moment, Louie seemed far from patient and content. Like a pot of boiling water, nights of restlessness and interrupted slumber kept him on the edge. He was already hot-headed before, but he really didn't have the patience or the tolerance for mistakes or disrespect today.

He took the seat closest to the window and yet the furthest corner from the other customers. He briskly ordered exactly what he came here for—lobster tail and sweet red wine. It was easy enough, just two items after all, and yet the waitress seemed eager to write it all down on her notepad and seemed anxious when approaching him. It was clear that she was pretty new to the establishment because no one would ever struggle to remember two items like that. But, apparently, she did, since she returned with a plate of Iceburgian crab legs and sweet white wine.

"Here you are, sir!—"

"Lobster tail and red wine, how hard is that?" Louie interrupted, looking at his plate with this unimpressed stare, brows raised and eyes narrow.

"Pardon? Crab legs and white wine, right? Or was that..." the girl looked at her notepad, and then over at a different table that was patiently awaiting their food. The color drained from her face. "Oh, I'm soooo, so, so sorry, sir! Here, I'll go get your lobster right away—"


"S-Sir! Your hand! The glass...!" the girl gasped, looking at her blonde customer as he sat there with a tall glass of water now crushed into pieces in his hand. Surprisingly, it didn't break the skin, but the glass was shattered now, and the look of looming anger on his face was unmistakably silencing.

"Two items, two. And you can't remember that? I don't get it. I go out of my way to come to this place, give you my jewels, and yet..." Louie looked at her with the crushed glass in his palm, taking it and dropping the pieces at her feet with that same wide-eyed anger, "What are you waiting for? Go fix it, or will you forget that too?"

The girl didn't say anything, she just nodded fervently and scurried off to fix the order. Maybe if he was better rested, she would've been yelled at in a way that was more deserving, but Louie simply didn't have the energy to be anything other than on the brink of an outburst. He swept off the bits of glass still on his palm and stared out the window with a dangerous glare.

He really wanted to kill him.

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WC: 1004 | Total WC: 1004 | WC Needed: 5,000 (solo) @Cetus Nerveux = Nervous porcine = piggy Très bon = Very good ""  —
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