[INCOMPLETE]

[treastening]

Who: Lucrecia, anyone who wants to run into her and have their minds broken ♥ (open).
When: during the ball.
Where: the balcony on the second floor of the castle.
Rating: PGish.
Warnings: ... Lucrecia. By herself. Forming theories. About hypothermia. Baddd news.
Summary: Lucrecia can't really waste all the time at the ball socializing, can she?

Comments

[zacked]

In getting to know Lucrecia, there was something very important that Zack and Kadaj was learning: she was a special, special woman. Of course, for Zack this generally just made him want to laugh and shake his head, whilst Kadaj found himself feeling some level of agitated and exasperated. (Natural for him, since Kadaj had absolutely no idea how to deal with or respond to things like this. Other than perhaps to stare.) Still, they both were quickly becoming knowing of the fact that dealing with something like this was just part of dealing with her.

So, Zack just gave a small, amused shake of his head and Kadaj had to resist the urge to turn backwards and stare at his mother.

“That still isn’t good for you,” Zack was saying, following after Kadaj, who was leading them back into the main area of the ball, but still trying to keep away from the larger groups of people. “You could get really sick, you know?” And planet forbid that, Zack thought. He could just imagine both Kadaj and Cloud’s overreaction to that.

(Really, he was thinking that he’d have to tell her that you only attempted things like that when no one was around and you were fairly certain no one would show up. Which was perhaps something he shouldn’t do, encouraging her and all that, but-that was Zack for you. Not like he himself didn’t think there were at least a handful of really stupid ideas that he perceived to be awesome.)

A moment later, when Kadaj finally decided upon a spot to remain, Zack carefully set Lucrecia down. He took a step back at once and that was a good thing, because there was Kadaj, approaching and standing directly in front of her, watching with wary eyes. “Are you all right?”

[treastening]

Well, she felt perfectly all right, but no - she probably wasn't. The tips of her fingers were a little blue, and her face was still completely devoid of color. She was still shaking rather violently, and the moment Zack put her down, her arms were up folded across her chest again as she offered them a rather cheery smile. It was also a little hard to keep her balance, and her hand moved out to rest against the wall when she swayed a bit, mumbling something about how it wasn't very funny of the room to jump up and down on her the way it was. When she saw Kadaj move closer, however, she instinctively reached out, tugged him a little nearer to her.

My, wasn't he unusually warm? She couldn't remember him ever being that warm before, but then again, she was lacking any body heat whatsoever at that current point in time.

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine~" Yes. Fine, despite the trembling and whatnot. Fine, despite the light-headedness. Fine, despite the sudden intrusion of heat on chilled flesh that was making her skin burn. If one were to look past all of that, she was completely healthy. "I wish you would have let me stay out a bit longer. I was so close to reaching the third stage."

And wouldn't that have been an experience?

... One that would have likely led to her death, perhaps, but being the optimist Lucrecia was, she tended to ignore that small little detail.

[paramounted]

Kadaj was definitely frowning. He didn’t want to think mother was lying to them, but she was so obviously not okay that there couldn’t be any way she wasn’t aware of it. (Could there?) His agitation only grew because this was something he didn’t really know how to deal with; the best that Kadaj could conclude was that his mother was cold and that needed to be fixed.

Options for fixing that at the moment, of course, were limited. Still, Kadaj would do his best and thus he forced himself-had to force himself, because it was so painfully awkward-to bring his arms up around Lucrecia, when she drew him closer. He pulled her into a tight hug and had to check himself at how cold she felt. (Something that made his frown deepen.)

“You need to be warm,” he murmured, as though that wasn’t obvious. “Do you want to go find a bedroom, mother? There must be some around here, with beds and blankets. That would help you, wouldn’t it?”

[treastening]

Now she was beginning to feel just a bit guilty. Glancing up at Kadaj a bit sheepishly, she offered him another smile, chilled fingertips reaching up to brush fondly against his cheek. Pulling back, she ran her hands up over her arms again, nodding a bit - mostly to herself - as she thought. In all honesty, she hadn't meant to worry anyone; then again, she never really did, did she? It didn't mean people weren't going to worry anyway, or that she wasn't going to stop and actually think something through before she did it. That was something she needed to work on, perhaps.

"No, no, dear, that's quite all right. You should go back to the party, hm?"

[paramounted]

Kadaj was quick enough to shake his head then. He didn't for a moment think that it was 'quite all right' and, anyways-well, the only reason he had come to the party in the first place had been to be with mother, wasn't it? He had no interest in socialising with other people, unless it was perhaps nii-san, but it didn't seem to him like nii-san was all that interested in leaving mother just then, either.

And he wasn't. either. Instead, Zack was still just standing there, frowning. "We can't exactly leave you like this, Lu. No way we could enjoy the party until you're warm and good again."