A/N: A small piece of work that came up in my mind and I had to write it down.
The young child bent down and picked up the heavy load of apples and placed it on top of a stack of trays, filled with delicious red apples, each one with a shine to it. She heaved another tray off the truck and placed it beside the stacks of apples, this time the tray was filled with nectarines. Neatly piled in stacks were trays and boxes of fruit and vegetables, fresh from the orchards and farms ready for the fruit and vegetable markets [1] that opened as early as six o’ clock each morning until lunch. There weren’t any customers yet, not now anyway but there were other sellers, working on displaying their products. The young girl secretly took a sip of water from her master’s cup and sighed, flopping onto the wooden chair until customer’s started loading into the market grounds or when she got caught for taking a break.
Many customers were usually from restaurants or organisations that provided food for their staff but often quite a few were just old folks who’ve come to pick up some fruit since they had nothing better to do in their retired state.
The nine year old looked up from her fruit trays as a tall young man came storming down the isles between the stores and towards her. She gulped and breathed quickly. Her young master was approaching her, a mad expression on his face. In his hand, he clutched a whip with tints of blood. Normally she wouldn’t care more or the less whether he was going to lash that deadly whip at her again but ever since her young master caught her trying to run away a week ago, he was stricter and madder than ever, punishing her continuously with his bare fists and whip. Constantly he had checked to make sure she was working like a busy bee gathering pollen for its hive and in this case she was working for money for her master. “Lucretzia, get over here now!” he roared, his voice blasting out the ear drums of the nearby sellers. The little girl didn’t stir and just watched as he continued coming towards her. “NOW!” But she still gave no response.
He walked between the gap that separated the oranges from the apples and stopped directly on top of her, towering over the youngster, blocking the light that had shone on her earlier on. With a strong hand, he lifted her up by the front of her top and stared fiercely into her eyes. Since they were so close in contact, the man dropped his whip onto the car and brought a fist next to her face, shaking it to show his power and force. Heartlessly, he slammed it into the girl’s cheek, bruising the tender skin badly as it immediately started swelling up. But it wasn’t enough, he brought his hand back again and struck her once again in the face, activating the gush of blood and it started dribbling out of her nose. The young girl forced a smile upon her face. Her master dropped her onto the ground and growled in disgust before turning away.
By the time he had left, the other people in the markets were still trying to recover from the incident. With a wobbly walk and a dripping nose, the raven-haired child headed towards the bathroom, pushing the door open with the strength she had left. She dunked her head into the sink-filled water and let the blood drip constantly into the water changing into a bloody red colour and the diluted blood covered her face. Bringing her head back up, she surveyed her face, noticing the watery red liquid sliding off the purple right cheek and the pale white left cheek from the quick dispose of blood. It had been ten minutes before the blood had stopped leaking from her body but as she walked out, she had made sure that there were no signs of blood left trailing on her face and the big fat bruise was covered with her long blue bangs running over her right eye. Usually her master would hit her on the left side so that she could hide her bruises from glancing eyes. The child named Lucretzia Noin had lived through this for three years, suffering from torture, lack of education, food and the fact that she was often sick from working too long as the hours passed. She was an ill-treated child.
----------
The young duke of Romefeller who had just turned fifteen a few days ago was dressed up as a civilian, examining the products they had been purchasing as their food supplies. He followed his way into the area where the favoured stores stood, close to the middle of the entire shed as massive as it was. Customers had already flocked into the market even though it was still dawn. Treize Kushrenada glanced around, noticing several sellers calling out the prices over the hustle and bustle of the people. Following close behind him were four or five soldiers in casual wear. Next to the duke were a young boy and his father who came to this market everyday to purchase the military’s food supplies. The dark-haired child was pointing out to Treize how to tell the juicy pears from the dry ones. Once the boy had finished speaking, the brown-haired teen spoke with the boy’s father, gaining information about the supplies.
“Noin!” the boy whooped, scrambling through the crowd. “Haven’t seen you since yeth-er-day!”
The raven-haired child beside him giggled and uttered, “It’s yesterday not yeth-er-day.”
“Hehehe…” The boy just grimaced and gave her a goofy smile. They spoke for a while as Noin handed out plastic bags to the customers. Just as she glanced up, she saw a shadow casting over her small body and the boy beside her. It was her master again, ready to complain about her lazing around like a pampered kitty. She quickly pushed the boy behind her and looked up with the same fierce gaze.
“Well, well, well if it ain’t your little bratty friend again. Always tagging along like a pathetic dog!” His voice was so loud and ruthless that nearly everyone stopped in their tracks. “Lucretzia, come with me!” But the stubborn girl stayed put where she was, defending herself and her friend.
“Julian isn’t a dog nor is he a brat!” Noin shouted on the top of her lungs.
Her master just simply glared at her and uttered in a quieter voice, “Come with me.”
“No!”
“Now c’mon Lucretzia, be reasonable!”
“Hell no! I said no ‘cause you’re a bully. Like your dead sister said before you killed her, you’re a damned beast from hell!” Such deadly words from such a young child shocked everyone. Julian, Noin’s friend cowered behind several trays of fruit, his ears covered by his hands, afraid of what had gotten into his friend.
Standing above Noin, the man brought up a hand and whipped it across the girl’s face, hitting over the throbbing bruise from earlier that morning. Noin stood still as if she hadn’t been struck at all.
Treize pushed through the people until he reached the scene to see a young girl getting beaten up by the man and no one was doing anything to prevent it. Obviously he didn’t care for his own reputation since the whole public was just standing there, wanting to escape from the scene. “Let her go!” Treize commanded over the girl’s cries.
Noin’s master looked around at Treize and glared at the amateur who seemed as if ready for his downfall. He threw the limp body into the trays and boxes and swivelled his body around to face the duke and smirked evilly. Quickly Treize jumped into his fighting stance and lashed out his fists. “Sir-” one of the soldiers protested but was quickly silenced with a simple gesture. The man punched at what used to be Treize’s position, his fists touching the empty air. Cunningly, the boy dropped down and spun his foot around, tripping over the older person and swiftly kicked him on his side with feet as hard as he could.
Noin shook her head as she woke up back into consciousness, she was lying on top of a pile of trays, her left arm numbed. She stood up and glanced at the scene, noticing her badly injured master lying on the floor and a teenager fighting as his enemy. Suddenly a thought sparked into her mind, her master wouldn’t give up on any circumstances, not even if he was on the verge of death and he was a deadly being that roamed on earth. Her saviour was in trouble for the man he was facing was reaching for an object from his pocket. The young child leapt from the trays and boxes just as the man brought out a perilous gun, ready to shoot. He pulled his hand at the trigger and laughed like a mad man. Time seemed to have stopped just like that as Lucretzia used all her remaining energy to push down the strong teen who would’ve easily evaded her if he knew she was coming at him.
----------
Groaning as she tried to flip onto her other side, Noin opened her eyes, noticing a totally different surrounding. Somehow she ended up in a small confined area with a curtain surrounding her with metal bars holding it up at the top. Her head was leaning on something soft and uncomfortable while her body felt all stiff and sore. Slowly, she sat up to get a proper look. Maybe she wasn’t hallucinating because there were green curtains and there was a metal bar. Where was she? She looked down and patted what she was lying on; it was a bed with a thin pillow and sheets of white. Was this a hospital? Noin had no idea for her head was swimming with pain and she wasn’t comfortable about being here nor did she like the smell of disinfectant.
Lifting up her right arm, she noticed a white bandage wrapped around her wrist, fastened with pin. It felt fairly tight and annoying. But as she glanced at her left arm, it was plastered with bandages continually wrapped around and around and around. On the outside it looked like a giant poof ball. If she was injured in any way, wasn’t that just a bit too exaggerated? It seemed so anyway. Sliding off the bed, she peeped around the side of her curtain, noticing other children sleeping in other white beds that looked just like hers, some with curtains and others without. Perhaps she was still in a dream and everyone said that you can’t hurt yourself if you’re in a dream. Or maybe this wasn’t even a dream, maybe she had died after all. Briskly, she heard footsteps and quickly darted back behind the curtain and onto the bed, creating a crashing sound as she narrowly landed on the small metal bar at the head of the bed. But she quickly flipped back over and closed her eyes as if nothing had happened.
She heard the sound of the curtains opening at the same moment as she felt light shine on her. Fluttering her eyes open, she noticed the civilian she had seen that morning at the markets. “You’re awake,” he muttered, smiling at the young girl in a caring brotherly way.
“Who are you?” Noin questioned, eyeing the young man nervously.
“Treize Kushrenada. Thank you for saving my life today.”
“Um… well I’m meant to thank you for stopping my master from killing me there.”
“Do you know why was he carrying a gun with him?”
“He used to be in the Alliance until he got kicked out recently because he stuffed up a mission,” Noin answered timidly. “And he wasn’t very happy.”
“Thank you. How are you feeling right now?”
“Alright I suppose. By the way, where is my master?”
“He’s locked up in prison. Where exactly is your family?”
“Sorry but I prefer not to answer your question sir,” the child mumbled, glancing wearily at the blankets.
“It’s alright. So do you have a home where you can stay?” She was hesitant to answer but eventually shook her head. “You have potential child, why don’t you follow me and train under the Specials as an OZ member?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where you train to become a soldier.”
“But I don’t want to be a soldier. I don’t like seeing bloodthirsty people.”
Treize sighed. “That’s why we become soldiers… To protect the weaker ones just like the way I did you.” Silence flowed in the room until suddenly a child sleeping from the far end of the room woke up and cried just as he slammed his head on the bar. Secretly inside, Noin laughed. “Tell me your answer in a few days time, maybe you’ll change your mind.”
----------
Sitting on the balcony, Noin looked up, staring at the cloudless sky, watching as the stars twinkled continuously. “Starlight, star bright, tell me how am I to decide?” She continued gazing and smiling. Naughty little Noin wasn’t supposed to be out in the cold night wearing only a nightgown. She wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere but in her bed.
----------
With her lunch, Noin sat down at the hospital cafeteria since she was admitted to leave the hospital and Treize was supposedly going to find her a new home. She had decided that she wouldn’t join the Specials, even if it meant living in an old rickety house alone. War was too harsh for her, she was a normal civilian and she didn’t want to become one of the big bullies her master once was. She had her right arm in a sling and her left arm in a thin bandage since they realised that the bullet had just merely grazed her arm and not how serious they thought it was before. With her sandwich in her left arm, she pulled it up to her mouth and took several bites and continued to chew slowly.
Several kids were sitting near her, most of them were with their friends but a single boy was sitting alone by himself, his bangs shielding his face from being seen. Peculiar… She was about to talk to him when suddenly she heard two boys quarrelling, she quickly turned to see what was happening. The older boy suddenly barrelled down the smaller child and pushed him onto the floor. Noin dashed from her chair and shielded the smaller boy, using her left hand to grip onto the charging boy’s shirt, whirling him around. Even though he was boy, he was still no match for the handicapped Lucretzia Noin. She grabbed onto his wrist and held it behind his back to stop him from wriggling out of her grasp. Although she was using her softest possible grip, the boy was wailing his head off. Eventually Noin let go and attended to the little one, lying on the floor with his knee grazed slightly. “Are you ok?” Noin asked, looking into the sobbing boy’s face.
“Yeah, thanks” he sniffed and pulled his sleeves to wipe his eyes. She patted him on the back and turned her attention on the other boy who was flexing his wrist gently as if he wasn’t sure whether he fractured his wrist or not.
“Hey, go and apologise.”
“No!”
“Go and apologise,” she said firmly, trying to let the child know that she was in control at the moment.
“No!”
“Go.” She gave him a quick ‘go or else’ look.
“OK, OK,” he yelled, stalking over to the boy and saying a quick sorry before stomping out of the room with his two friends following behind him.
Making her way back to the table, she sat down and continued eating the rest of her lunch when she suddenly noticed the boy sitting opposite her. “Hey,” Noin grinned, eating her last bite of lunch.
“Hello,” the boy muttered with a gentle smile.
“What’s your name?”
“Milliardo Peacecraft. You?”
“Lucretzia Noin but please call Noin,” she gave him a cheerful grin.
“It’s nice to meet you, Noin.”
“So I see you to have acquainted yourselves,” a voice chuckled.
“Treize,” the two spoke in unison.
“So Lucretzia, do I get an answer today?”
Noin looked up at him and nodded her head confidently. “I’ve decided to join the Specials in order to help those who are weaker…”
----------
Notes: [1] There’s this market in Australia and it’s inside this massive shed and there are many thousands of stores and these tiny little isles and it’s really, really, really crowded and you try to squeeze between everybody and overall, it’s very dark inside.
A/N: SO… how was that? I’ve been working a looooonnnngggg time on that so I better get some reviews. Out of SOOOO many fanfic authors, why do you have to pick poor little me? Who barely even has enough money to sustain the half yearly snacks or even a bag of M&Ms. Why must you be so cruel, why? Why? Why? OK you lawyers out there get your butt moving and off this fanfic coz I don’t own nething!
