Innocence Saved [CLOSED]

There was a fairy tail going on in Maria's head. Books taught her much and she was rather well read. Fairy tails happened so quickly; one moment you're sad and lonely, and then suddenly you fall in love with your prince charming, are married, and will live happily ever after. The moments in between are so vague, so rushed that it's hard to tell how long something took. Maria did not understand that love did not come over night. It wasn't something that happened at first sight. Love was a process of bonding through words and experience. It was getting to know each other, trust, and honesty. And for Maria, out of all things love never would be, at the top of that list was a man named Frankie.

Maria didn't understand the mistake she was making, but she did understand that she was going against Neil's wishes. Besides work and duties she was called to do, Maria avoided Neil. She was spending a lot of time with Frankie. The next time he asked her out, after Maria and Neil's last meeting, Maria said yes. She was going to be Frankie's girl now. It wasn't that bad, but it was weird. Frankie tried to sleep in her bed and she didn't want to share it with him. He tried to shower with her, but she felt the shower was too small. He tried to kiss her lips, but she wasn't ready for her first kiss to be gone yet. However, she highly enjoyed the hugs, being called cute, and the forehead kisses.

Two weeks with this new routine, Maria has decided it is time to do what happens in her books. She needs something nice to wear. After a strange morning shopping trip and explaining her intentions to a woman who thought she was too young, Maria came home with a strange outfit that reminded her of the sex slave girls in the Vonnera. The woman at the store said it was what she should wear, so she was gonna wear it, but it was weird. Until it was time, she sat the bag in her room and went on with her chores like normal. She saw Frankie a few times throughout the day and didn't talk much to Neil. During dinner, she ate very little and quicker than normal, excused herself, and hurried off.

Maria showered, brushed her hair, and followed what the lady in one of her favorite books did step by step. She put on the clothing and stared at herself in the mirror. "Men are strange. What is good about this clothing?" she asked herself as she turned left and right, examining her new outfit. At this point, Maria felt that Frankie should be here any minute. Unfortunately for Maria, the houses main maid figured out what was going on. The woman noticed the change in Maria's behavior and saw the lingerie when cleaning Maria's room this evening. When she got the chance and noticed Neil was alone, the maid approached him and explained what has been going on and her current plans with Frankie.

Maria was doing strange poses. She stuck her butt in the air and toward the mirror. She pushed out her non-existant bust to make herself look bustier. She laid on the bed and put her arm over her side like the woman on the cover of her book. She didn't feel right! She was smaller and her boobs weren't big enough. When the knock came to the door, Maria freaked. Thud. Bang. Boom. Thud. "Coming." Groan. Thud. "Ow." And the door handle moved. Maria opened the door and looked up to Neil curiously. "Hello. Is everything okay?" she asked with her head tilted. Maria was wrapped in her blanket with only her face showing. The worst thing was... she thought this was a perfect way to keep it a secret.

When he said she wasn't hiding it well, she went to drop the blanket, but he stopped her. Maria stood there confused until he came in. As he closed the door, she looked around him to see if Frankie was there, but saw nothing. "People are talking about us?" Maria glanced away with a slight pout, having a few violent scenes run through her head. She didn't appreciate being told on. "I don't understand what it is foolish for." Maria said and turned toward her bed. She got down onto her knees and grabbed onto something. She pulled out a medium sized flat box that had a lot of books in them. Each book had muscly men and beautiful women on the cover. They were all romance novels.

"All of these have a system to them. The woman needs help, a man helps her, and they become a stronger friendship like you explained a couple weeks ago..." Maria grabbed one book in particular, "This is the only one that's different, and in this one the woman is strong too and doesn't need help, but works with the man until they do the same thing. Frankie and I work together, so last time he told me to be his girl I said I would try it. In all the books, soon after becoming someone's girl, they have sex, so I was going to let Frankie have sex with me. It's supposed to be private..." Maria's voice became annoyed with her last sentence, but then she sighed, "Frankie makes me feel nice, so it's time."

Maria was quiet. She had nothing to say. She was wrong about something big. She knew this was going to be a mistake, but was ready to go through with it anyway. Maria sat on her knees, her back to Neil as he continued on. She flinched when the book tapped her head. Maria turned to answer his question when knock, knock, knock. She whimpered out of embarrassment. "Ten minutes from now and I..." Maria looked back to her books and sighed. She stood up, letting the blanket fall to the floor and walking toward the door. With an extremely pissed off expression, she opened the door and slapped Frankie across the face. "I hate you." she said before kneeing him in the groin, "Now fuck off!"

Maria slammed the door in Frankie's face, giving him no explanation. Maria walked back over to her pile of books. "These teach me nothing... right?" Maria's eyes shifted back up toward him. There was something new there, something angry. "Not... necessarily, Maria. These teach you some baselines for making some decisions—as well as how to critique a writer—but not how you should make decisions. It's more like... having a dictionary. You won't use every word in there, but you will know what certain words mean and how to use them. You make a decision based on what you feel and what you know. In this case, you simply didn't know the whole story."

"It is not fair. I never do!" Maria picked up one of the novels and held it tightly in her hand. She stared at the front cover and with each passing moment became more angry. Maria curled over on herself, whimpering and clenching her jaw tightly. A moment later, she began ripping up every book she had. She pulled off covers, tore through pages, and tossed them all into the trashcan, notably not missing a single shot. She even went so far as to bite them and use both hands to tear through every page.

"The woman at the shop said that too... I wanted the green one, but she said that this one is sexier." Maria wiped her face after grabbing a tissue of the night stand. Maria turned to face him and was still angry. She didn't usually show this much emotion, especially negative emotion. She could be happy and a bit cheerful, but she never acted on it. Right now, she was just plain angry. "I'm not asking anyone anything. Even if I did want to get to know someone in that manner, they wouldn't tell me anything anyway." Maria looked to the floor, clenching her jaw again  before turning away from Neil, "I shouldn't have hit him or said I hated him. That was stupid. Now he'll never ask me again."

Maria looked to her books and kicked them away from her. She stood up and walked around the bed to the bathroom. On the way there, she ripped the ribbons out of her hair and threw them on the floor. She removed her lingerie in the bathroom and tossed them out on the floor, returning in an casual nightgown. It reached to her feet and had sleeves that stopped below her elbow. Maria sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Neil and faced the wall. "I don't want to read anymore. I don't want to write anything either." Maria said, pretty much giving up something she had learned to love, "I apologize for wasting your time with this. I didn't mean for you to find out. I tried keeping it a secret."

Maria turned to the hand on her shoulder and then to Neil. She looked sad and confused. "But I know how to do it now." she replied in a disagreeing tone. Maria nodded to answer him. "He said that if you knew you'd be mad at me. That you'd put in the dungeon again. I don't want to go back down there again, so I kept being secretive about it." Maria explained, looking away with an ashamed expression. When he explained what should have happened, Maria only became more confused. Why was the word different than writing? What was the hesitation for? What did he mean by filter? Wait, secret? He said secret, right? Maria looked up to Neil with a bit of a sparkle in her eye. "You would show me something like that?" Maria said excitedly and stood up, "I would like to see it or hear it... I wanna know it."

A soft whimper escaped when he said her name. She slouched like she was expecting to be scolded. His explanation comforted her a little, so she relaxed. She also mistook his smile over the dungeon as an addition to the implication that she was important. She would not go in the dungeon; that made her happy. Maria did not hesitate to get dressed. She was excited. It was like a child about to get his Christmas present or eat their birthday cake. When Neil returned, Maria followed him as instructed. She was surprised to have him wrap his arm around hers, but definitely enjoyed the closeness it brought. Maria was even more surprised when he began sharing bits of information about people, but that wasn't really her cup of tea. She listened and kept note of everything, but she'd never use it.

The sudden turn down the alley put Maria on high alert. The darkness reminded her where they were and who she was. She was Neil's bodyguard in Grandview. She could not let her guard down at all, so before anything bad happened, she was glad to remember that. Maria followed him down the stairway and then up the ladder. She had no idea where they were going, but when the two got there, she was taken aback by the beauty of Grandview. "It's... surreal. I learned that word yesterday." Maria hopped once and smiled happily, but then that smile dropped as she looked on the city, "It's pretty, but also kind of sad. The people in Grandview are so cruel. It's nice to feel peaceful, it's sad know that when day comes, everything is different. It be nice to meet people who didn't hurt each other."

"Neil... Can I ask you something? It's a little odd, but I'd like to know..." Maria looked to him curiously. When he gave her permission, Maria put her hands behind her back and continued looking out over the city. She was quiet, but deep in thought trying to word her question correctly. "Words don't always work the way I want, so I am trying to ask this the way I mean it..." she explained her silence, "Neil, what are you goals in life? And when I ask that, I mean do you want to be fifty or sixty years old and still be watching your back? Do you want to have a bodyguard at that time? You're so smart. I know there is something else in the world you'd be great at. There has to be... I want to own a house in the country with a dog named Lucky and meet the Queen. I don't think it will happen, but it's nice to hope."

"Yes it is!" Maria immediately replied with a slight raised voice, angry that he would say something like that. Her questions were good. They meant something and she wanted to learn something about him from them. That was the point. As he continued on, Maria sat down and looked out over Grandview. "Your answer makes me mad. I hate it." she said bluntly after he finished. She took in a deep breath, held it, and then slowly let it out. "I want to meet the Queen because if I can do that, it means that I've changed the way my life is going. If I can get close enough to the Queen and talk to her, it means I'm nice. It means that I can be good and have a life where I'm happy and have real friends. I've always wanted a pet and like dogs, and if I got one, I thought I'd be lucky and name him that."

Maria sighed and hung her legs over the edge of the walk-way, swinging them back and forth. "I'm sorry I got angry, but I really don't like your answer. I can't tell whether you don't want to move out and be free from this dark world, or whether you actually feel you can't. I think you can... Things change. Things can always change if you try and sometimes you get lucky... I did." Maria looked up to Neil and pointed at herself, "I thought I would always be serving the Vonnera. I thought he was going to keep hurting me. I thought he was going to work me until I broke. I thought I was going to die there, but that changed." Maria stood up and held herself a bit stronger than she had before. She looked like she was going into a battle or defending him from an attacker, "You changed that for me."

"There are hundreds, if not thousands of places out there that are better than here. And if there is anyone in this shitty city that has the ability to get out, it's you! No one else is as intelligent. No one else is as resourceful. Only you. I understand that acting freely is something you desire, but the only reason you desire that is because of this city, this place... and these PEOPLE!" Maria screamed out over Grandview, "I refuse to believe that you were born with the desire to live your life based on the ability to get revenge and hold people's secrets over their heads. It's what this place has taught you; it's what it's taught all of them. The only reason I am different, like you say, is because I was kept in a dungeon. I was locked away and tortured into submission because I never had any other chance."

"You though... You have the power to change. You have the power to go out there, experience what this world has, and to make yourself better. I don't understand how you could refuse to do that just because of a few laws that, if anything, would protect you. Mister Vonnera said there is a reason that people stay in Grandview, but I can't see it. I want to leave this place... If I could, I would. I would run away and never come back, but you keep me here." Maria narrowed her eyes and looked back to him, "And not forcefully. I don't mean that. I mean you keep me here by being... by being you! I don't know what that means. All I know is that it's in my head. I could run away. I could vanish completely, but I don't and it's all because of this strange want... this confusing desire that I have to be with YOU!"

By the time Maria's rant was over, she out breathless. Besides the single break in between, she had spoke fluidly and ran out of breath. She caught her breath as he talked, but she also contemplated to herself. That was the first time in her life where she told someone to just listen to her. She had never expressed herself so clearly before, nor thought she'd have the right to. When he did not retaliate by striking her, Maria was completely shocked. It was a pleasant feeling not to be punished for how you felt. And the first thing that Neil said was even more surprising. Not only was he not yelling, but he gave her information about his past. That was the kind of stuff she wanted to know about.

Things were being put into place. Thoughts were being collected. Maria understood. The people from his past are the ones he's worried about. Okay then. Her eyes shifted around a few times, like she was making her own plans. "I'll keep you safe. I'll make sure no one in your past comes after you, ever." Maria said with a smile. As he continued on, Maria felt her face warm. She was unaware that her cheeks had turned a nice shade of red, but she could feel the blush as it crept up on her. She stepped forward to do as asked, but he stopped her. She was too literal at times. "I don't want to leave you. I want to stay with you for as long as you don't hate me, but just sitting in the house is boring..."

"Chores are hard and repetitive. The most I've done is clean, paperwork, sharpen my knives, and other things you need me to do. I like helping you, but I want to have fun! I've never had fun before, and I don't mean the fighting people type of fun. I mean the laughing, smiling, friends type of fun. Frankie says that people in Grandview go to dance places with music and lights going everywhere. He also talked about the beach; I've never seen the ocean. I heard men like to fish; do you?" Maria caught herself as she was going off on a tangent, "I was talking a lot, but I can't help it. I don't get to talk that much to people. I want some friends, but I don't trust anyone in Grandview. Except you, obviously."

The chance of Maria wearing a bathing suit just dropped when she remembered she had to bring her knives. Those don't just appear; they're carefully arranged throughout her clothing. Bathing suits don't give the amount of cover she needs to keep them hidden. Oh well. Maria nodded. "I won't forget." she confirmed and then smiled widely, "I'm gonna build a sand castle, catch crabs, kill the jelly fish, punch a shark, and ride a whale." Her goals about the beach were a little out there, but she thought she could really do all of that. Maria giggled happily as she thought about he incoming trip. "A trip to the beach sounds like the best trip ever! Let's just pick one where not many people will be. It'll be more fun if I don't have to be on super alert the entire time. Is that possible? Are their private beaches?"

"You own a house in the place that you say you might retire to in later years. That's nice. That I like." Maria said with rather sweet and radiant smile. Something about knowing that made her glow a bit; it was just a bit more hope for Neil. "A diving knife should work just fine for me! I've never had one before!" Maria exclaimed in excitement and giggled, shuffling her feet cheerfully. When she thought about whether it was a good deal or not, she tilted her head and then shook it. "No. I wanna get you a gift too." Maria said and then thought about it, "It'll be a token of gratitude for everything that has happened since I met you. Guarding you is a job, but getting a new home, not being in the dungeon, no more conditioning sessions, and the best food I've ever eaten deserves a thank you. And no, I'm not taking no for an answer. It is the last thing I will disagree with you on... maybe."