LTSV - Lost & Found 21 (Patreon)

Mira found herself looking up at a very familiar and unwelcome face. Bad memories flooded Mira’s head and not just the ones she’d inherited from Violet. 

The man (a boy, really) was tall and handsome, which of course you had to be if you were going to star as the canon love interest in an Otome game. He was the blonde option with brilliant green eyes like emeralds that burned with their own inner fire. He wore his cornsilk colored hair worn short and slicked back from his face. Violet’s memories showed him wearing a half-cape with his school uniform, but he was dressed down for today in a white dress shirt with a black ascot, pale blue silk waistcoat, and charcoal colored trousers. 

If Mira’s lives tended to follow a theme, they also recycled cast members—and the man approaching her was chief among them after Cecily. This too was within her expectations. The entire reason she picked up ‘Lost Daughter’ in the first place was because she’d seen an echo of an old enemy in the promo art pictures, even though dating sims weren’t her favorite genre. All dating sims got a little samey over time and she preferred strategy games or first person shooters, but her instincts had served her well this time.

Prince Andrei was the Kuudere archetype. He was cold and critical upon casual acquaintance, allegedly because of his poorly defined status within his family, but in the game Cecily melted through his icy exterior with her uncomplicated and sweet demeanor to uncover his true sweety and goofy self.

Mira had her own thoughts about the ‘I treat you differently because you’re special’ types, but she also didn’t intend to fight Cecily for him. 

Following close behind Andrei was Bryn Havard, Andrei’s personal escort knight. Bryn was another of the capture targets in ‘Lost Daughter.’ He and Andrei were close and, if you played your cards right, the player could lure them into becoming a throuple with Cecily as the third member of their polycule. 

Bryn was the blue-haired option and about two years older than Andrei, which made him three years older than Cecily and the oldest love interest in the game. He was the Dandere type. He was extremely reserved to the point where he hardly had any dialogue. The developers compensated by giving him twice as many facial expressions than the other characters, although the differences were slight. Anyone who wanted to play the Bryn route had to get very good at parsing his microexpressions very quickly. 

Although their personalities seemed similar at the beginning (they were known around school as the Ice Sculptures) Bryn was less gruff than Andrei and slower to anger. He was a decisive fighter and wouldn’t hesitate to throw down if necessary, but at the same time he was the love interest who was least likely to fly off the handle if someone tried to punch his buttons. Andrei was a lot more impulsive and prone to snap judgments. Bryn, meanwhile, wasn’t exactly hostile to Violet. For example, he didn’t necessarily agree with the rest of Cecily’s faction that Violet was the anonymous bully hassling their heroine because there was no clear evidence to prove it one way or the other, but he also disliked Violet on Andrei’s behalf so he wasn’t going to be of any help in a conflict.

In short, these were the last two people in the world that Mira wanted to see at present.

“...shit…” Cecily whispered and started moving faster. “Sorry! I’m sorry!” Although whether she was apologizing for swearing or manhandling Mira was anyone’s guess. It was possible that Mira had been a bad influence on her. 

Mira couldn’t respond to what her sister was saying. 

Memories crashed over her in wave after unforgiving wave. If Vesper, Violet’s own sister, hardly had any presence in her life and memories the same could not be said for Andrei. Her memories overlapped each other until the edges blurred and all Mira saw was various permutations of Andrei, unhappy with Violet. 

She saw him pacing, smacking his thigh with a riding crop, as he spoke curtly to her. “I do not owe you any explanation,” he was saying. “I did not request an invitation and it was insensitive of you to insist on sending one anyway. I correctly sent my regrets. I will not stand here and beg your forgiveness for an offense that I did not…”

Violet remembered his words, but not as loudly as the sound of the riding crop. None of the memories of Andrei showed him ever hitting her or even threatening to, but somehow Violet expected violence from—from who?

Then she was very small and lying in bed. Everything hurt, but especially her head and she was sick to her stomach. Mira recognized the sensation as that of a very bad concussion. From the open window near her bed, a voice (not Andrei’s, but someone Violet associated with him) said, “Watch your mouth in the future or I won’t be so kind to you next time.”

Even the memory of that voice made Mira’s stomach clench with dread and horror. Why? What had—? Only then she remembered being Violet not long after the scene where that stranger threatened her through her window. Her head still hurt in the memory, enough so that she’d gone outside to lay on her back in the shady grass with her eyes closed.

Her first and only warning came from the sound of booted feet in the grass. She sat up and…

The seizure hit. The one good thing about it was that the sudden involuntary jerk of her body threw off that memory’s hold on her so she didn’t have to relive more than the first splash of the acid as it hit her face. 

Once again, Mira lost several seconds before Cecily’s magic flowed into her and protected her body from what was happening to it. Mira took as much stock of the situation as she could and tried to remember what had happened.

Cecily had been hustling her into the carriage with Colvin’s help, but Mira thought that maybe the seizure had already started by then. She felt like Cecily had been struggling to keep a hand on her while Colvin both helped Mira into the coupe and tried to shield her from the prince’s view.

“I’m afraid I can’t talk right now,” Cecily had been saying to—Andrei? Yes, he’d caught up by then, hadn’t he? “My–my friend isn’t feeling well and we need to get her home.”

“Please wait! I’ve been worried. No one has seen you since the semester ended and all my letters have been sent back,” Andrei said and–that was a valid concern, Mira just wished that he’d chosen a better time to express it. 

Then Cecily’s palm left Mira’s back, quickly like someone had pulled her hand away by the wrist in order to clutch it in front of his chest. Romanced Andrei was kind of a tool like that. It seemed like the kind of move that he’d pull. 

However it happened, Cecily’s magic was the only thing keeping the seizure from hitting in full force. Without it, Mira must have dropped like a stone. She was currently on her side on the floor of the coupe, half in her little sister’s lap. There were people all around the outside of the carriage, but Mira couldn’t really see them. Her good eye and ear were pressed into Cecily’s shoulder as she pumped more and more magic into Mira’s spasming body. Unlike last time, though, she was only just barely able to suppress the violence of the storm wracking Mira’s body.

“M-mister Adelram?” Cecily’s voice was wavering with exertion. “Please call for help. I think her inscription is amplifying the seizure. I can’t keep up!”

She could hear a commotion outside. Several people were shouting, some at one another, others just in general. Andrei’s voice rose briefly over the hubbub, “How dare you!”

However, Cecily’s magical energy suddenly swelled and Mira’s felt her one eye flutter shut as her sister finally squashed the seizure down to the same level of mild discomfort as last time. She lay boneless against Cecily’s shoulder for a while until she felt more up to trying to look around again.

The first thing she saw was Cecily’s pale face looking down at her. She blinked slowly and struggled to wet her lips for a moment before speaking, “Another one?” she croaked. Mira knew it had happened, of course, but even the things she’d seen and heard just a few seconds ago felt like they were floating away from her so she suddenly wasn’t sure and wanted reassurance. 

“The doctors are coming,” Cecily assured her quietly. “You’re going to be alright.”

There was something strange about Cecily’s silhouette, but it took Mira a moment to realize exactly what it was and also why Andrei was so pissed off. Cecily’s dress had been torn open in the back and had fallen a bit forward to expose her shoulder blades to the street outside the carriage. Colvin was standing behind Cecily with one hand on her back, wreathed glowing energy and free floating spell formulae. She didn’t recognize the exact spell, but the bits she could see were about converting or amplifying energy and Mira guessed he was feeding his own mana reserves directly into Cecily’s body, using the formula to convert it into a neutral state that she could more easily absorb and use.

Additionally, he was standing sideways with his weight on one knee, braced against the floor of the coupe as he used his body and raised forearm to keep the people outside at bay. At first she thought he was holding off a doctor for some reason, but then she saw the face of the man trying to get to Cecily. 

It was Andrei.

“Your highness, please,” Bryn, for his part, was trying to pull Andrei back too. He, at least, still had his brain turned on. “Miss Rousseau has the matter in hand. The doctors are coming, but you’re blocking their access to the carriage.”

“He tore her dress open in the middle of the street and you expect me to stand idly by!?” Andrei hissed at him, but Bryn succeeded in distracting him long enough that the knight was able to get an arm around his waist and physically lift him away from the carriage. 

Within seconds, people in white jackets and hospital livery swarmed the carriage. Someone came around on the other side and opened the opposite door to access Mira directly. It was Doctor Desmona. She cradled Mira’s head and a second wave of magical energy rippled through her, doing through skill what Cecily could only do through brute force, and stopped the seizure for good. Mira could actually feel it halt. 

“Disengage now,” Doctor Desmona snapped at Cecily and, when Mira sagged in relief, she  looked at Cecily and said, “Report!

It seemed cruel, but Cecily’s nerves visibly settled in response to Doctor Desmona’s firm tone and she began rattling off the sequence of events that led to Mira’s latest episode. Mira could hardly follow it. She was so tired and sore, but passing out seemed like a bad idea so she struggled to stay awake.

“Good,” Doctor Desmona sighed when Cecily finished. “Good. You stabilized her in time. Bring a stretcher!” she bellowed over her shoulder. “Prepare to admit!”

Unfortunately, Doctor Desmona left the carriage door open when she slid out of it and Mira got a good look at the swarm of people outside who’d gathered to see what all the fuss was. There were soldiers and hospital orderlies maintaining a perimeter around the carriage, but standing right across from the open door was a man holding an open notebook with a card in his breast pocket that read ‘press.’ 

Their eyes met for two seconds before an orderly replaced Doctor Desmona to slide a stretcher under her and, going by the way his eyes went wide and the way his pen started moving faster, the journalist had recognized her. 

Worse, still, Andrei was waiting to throw his coat over Cecily’s bare back when Mira was pulled out of the coupe, flat on her back on the stretcher and Mira could see the exact moment when he realized just who Cecily’s ‘friend’ was. 

‘You know what?’ Mira thought as she saw his face go red and his expression turned ugly, ‘Fuck this.’ She gave herself up to unconsciousness.