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ClaudexReaderxSebastian, Part 9
Your Butlers, Playful

… It was morning. Bright, streaming sunshine swept the curtains aside and entered without pause, filling the room with golden glow that was welcome to your roaming eyes as you moved through across the carpet and went from one toy to the next.

It was a room filled with playthings, with trains and blocks and towers of dice—a room for children, but you didn’t care.
After all, Mother was here, and Father, too. They weren’t working for once; instead, they were sitting in the armchairs by the fire, and they were laughing. How odd, for your parents to be here to watch you play and to chatter with each other at ease.

How strange. But nevertheless, nothing has never been normal in this family. You were just glad they were here, to be near you, to be within your grasp at every moment. It would be possible to play without troublesome thoughts flooding your mind now that you knew they wouldn’t leave, and that they’d stay with you. It was an odd feeling, one that brought warmth and comfort… all you wanted to do was remain in this toy-filled room for hours, to ensure that your dear mother and father would never stray far from you… an eternity of calmness and warmth.
You fingered the toy train and laughed. An odd sound, in your own ears. But Mother and Father turned to smile at you, and that was all that you needed to feel perfectly fine again.
Everyone was happy. There was no blood, no tears, no sadness.
What could be better?
"(Name)...?"

… If only dreams could last...

“My, my. Asleep at this late hour of the morning. You are certainly all show and no effort, my lady.”

A chuckle of amusement. Then the curtains parted with a rattling of metal against metal, velvet swiftly folding in on itself, and bright sunlight pounded harshly at your closed eyes. You shut them tighter, moaned with frustration, and turned over, attempting futilely to suffocate yourself in your own pillow.

‘Another dream…? They’re getting more regular by the day.’

It wasn’t the first time you dreamt of your parents; of them being alive and safe and by your side. There had been many of those dreams after that night, all of them steadily fading into blackness, pushed to the back of your mind where you could not salvage them. Then again, that was for the best.
It certainly was all wishful thinking, something you didn’t want to reflect on. What was the point of lingering in the past when you could move on and leave it all behind, anyways? ... But lately, the dreams had been making a comeback.
'Perhaps I haven't put enough effort into forgetting,' you suggested to yourself.
However, trying very hard to forget was rather difficult with Sebastian looming over your treacherously.

“I will have to ask you to rise from bed immediately, my lady. Oversleeping will not do for someone of your status and responsibility. Now, up.”

‘God damn that butler. Can’t he just let me sleep?’

In a wise insight, you curled up on yourself and gripped onto your pillow more tightly, protecting it from the wrathful grasp of Butler Sebastian Michaelis. But soon enough, despite your pitiful efforts, that pillow was wrenched away from under your head, and the blankets were yanked off your limp form. Disregarding your groping efforts to reclaim them, the demon bastard dangled them out of your reach with his treacherous smile, as always, and bowed his head in mock politeness.

You sat up at last, shaking the sleep from your posture, and glared.

“... what the hell. Sebastian.”

You hated his games in the early morning, how he always demanded you be up by the seventh hour. There was never much to do, anyways: your late-father’s company could certainly run on its own once in a while, and it wasn’t as if you were obliged to pay your instructors any attention. You were intelligent enough, and Sebastian knew it—after all, he tutored you occasionally and was certainly aware of your level of thought process. What was the use of education when there was little it could give you at this point?

“My lady,” he said with smooth fearlessness at your griping mood, “I’m afraid you have duties to attend to today. I will not allow you to shut yourself up in your bedroom and sleep the day away.”

“I’m exhausted,” you moaned, reaching for the pillow hanging somewhere above your head—your eyes were still shut away from the sun. Another wise decision on my part, you decide firmly. “I don’t want to get up.”

His brows furrowed, and then he smirked with amusement. “I apologize my lady, but you instructed me that if ever you were to refuse to rise at the proper time, I am allowed to use force.” He paused, considering, before adding: “It’s your own fault for staying up so late to work. I expected you in bed at the proper time, but it appears I cannot rely on you to keep your word.”

You stared at him, the cogs of your mind slowly turning as you worked out your situation and how much of an advantage you were likely to have in a battle over a demon butler who was most likely adept in several hundred martial arts techniques. Then you shifted to the side of your bed and nudged your feet into the slippers waiting on the carpet and made to stand, scowling with sleep deprivation all the while.

Yes, Sebastian was right. You would never stay up past bedtime again, not for paperwork or for late business deals called in at the very last moment. The butler was suitably intelligent beyond his human years, far more than you were, and you decided that taking his advice would most likely resolve in a more desirable mood when waking up in the morning.

The toxic miasma of Sebastian’s cooking was already drenching the air with sweetness, and you ignored it, nearly gagging from the smell of what could only be described as solid, substantial murder. Was Sebastian trying to poison you with a sugar overdose? That did it—you’d have to watch that man from now on in the case that he turned to mutiny with cake as his weapon.

Sebastian scoffed at your ridiculous display of enthusiasm, at the wrinkled nose that greeted the smell of what he called “breakfast”. His expression was as regal and proud as ever, and he stepped forward and handed you a neatly folded dress with one arm, the other on the tea cart he’d wheeled in before parting the drapes. “My lady: the clothes that Mr. Faustus chose for you today.”

‘… Oh, brilliant.’

While Claude was a decent tailor, you weren’t in the mood for dressing up; you’d never liked tight clothes, especially so early in the day. One glance at the fancy frills and ornate lace and you felt as if Claude was trying to compensate for something. You glared down at the folded dress, a dark and lovely shade of burgundy, and grumbled: “Do I have to wear it?”

“It would be wise, my lady,” said the Raven with a smirk on thin, pink lips.

You took a moment or so to digest this, then asked: “... Do I have to wear a corset?”

You hated those damned things. Oh, how you hated them—as if ruffles and ribbons weren’t enough, society just had to stuff you into an ingeniously diguised device of strangulation that made hundreds of ladies appear far thinner than deemed healthy. Apparently the ostentatious pomps weren’t aware of what those objects did to their health.

Sebastian’s smile widened. “Of course, my lady. We must make you presentable, must we not?” He placed a hand on his hip and adjusted a pair of glasses with the other—you gathered that he’d been reading quite a bit earlier if he’d deemed a need for his spectacles. “A lady such as yourself, a daughter of an earl, must be dressed magnificently and refined in every manner possible.”

He was mocking you. And you knew it.

“And I, my dear Sebastian, am very tempted to rip out your vocal chords at this point.”

You squinted up at him, the sunlight penetrating the lids of your eyes and blinding your vision with white. “How impossibly cocky can you get at this time of day? I’ll have to write this down as a new record.”

Sebastian removed something from his pocket—a lovely little silver comb—and brushes through your hair until the locks no longer fall, bothersome, into your eyes, and the strands are pushed back behind your ears neatly. You make a noncommittal noise of boredom as he tucks a last strand of hair behind your ear, and then you draw in a breath and puff it out as hard as you can at his face; dark raven threads fall onto the pallid skin, and the butler gives a sigh and brushes them back without a fret.

“Please, no games right now, my lady. So, as I was saying...”

He went on with no heed to your prior remark, patting your nightclothes and brushing off the wrinkles; you knit your eyebrows together in frustration, looking with dislike down at the long shirt that trailed down to your knees and served as a nightgown of sorts. You watched the butler brush the shirt off and frowned; it would only be washed and pressed later, so why bother now with the neatness? Butlers were such trivial-minded men.

You picked up a doll off the bed where it had been sitting beside your pillow since the night before, forgotten by the toy box. It was hard, solid, and smooth, the glossy skin of the form of a little girl glinting back at you in the sunlight. You took the doll—that lovely, porcelain little thing that you half wanted to hurl to the floor right now—and settled it in your lap.

You toyed with the blonde, fake curls and the glassy skin, rubbing a finger against the lifeless ice-blue eyes of the inanimate creature as Sebastian kept speaking: “You are a high-ranked woman of society, Lady (Name). Learn your place.”

Dark ruby eyes rose to yours, the confidence in them startling. You snarled at the cocky expression, your hold on the doll tightening, and Sebastian finished brushing off your clothes with a final word of: “Please do try to act civilized.” A smirk, then a calm order of: “Please get ready for your morning bath, my lady.”

Then he stepped away and headed towards the tea cart at the foot of the bed, acting as if no words had ever been exchanged between the two of you. A perfect façade for one so devilishly secretive. You stand for a moment, shifting your weight from foot to foot and considering his advice, when suddenly it struck you.

‘… Civilized? He thinks I’m not civilized? Ha! Who the hell says I’m not civilized?’

“God damn you,” you snapped at him, and the butler only smiles. “I act my age perfectly.” You tightened your hold on the doll, glaring as he smirked knowingly, eyes burning through your mind and reading the truth.

“Then,” said Sebastian with a kindly smile that was surely fake, “would you like me to take that doll away for you? I’ll clean your mansion up the best I can and dispose of all these…” He paused, then smirked again. “... childish toys. After all, one must act their age, must they not?”

It was said almost playfully, nearly condescendingly. He reached out, with a long arm, and extended gloved, slender fingers, inviting the doll into his hold. You jerked it away quickly, hugging it against your chest. You liked your toys—they were things that no one else could touch, things that belonged to you, and you could do with them as you pleased. Sebastian would die if he laid a finger on this doll.

“Belt it. I’m not in a pleasant mood today,” you informed him with all the royal air you could muster, your frown deepening. You gathered up the clothes he left on your bed and headed towards the washroom. “Go down, and do something else. I don’t know—get Claude to start breakfast already or something.”

“He started the preparations for food over an hour ago. My, my, you are very cranky in the morning hours,” commented Sebastian with a small smile that certainly looked haughty on him. “And I thought you couldn’t get any feistier after the last week’s occurrence, when you flung your entire toy bin at Mr. Faustus when he tried dragging you out of be—”

“Get the servants ready, Sebastian.” You cut him off, not interested in hearing any more of his useless teasings. There was a time for that later, and you would certainly not let him push your buttons this early in the morning. Then you remembered: “We’ll be having a guest this evening. I want things to be proper for their arrival.”

“Any specific orders, my lady?” The man sounded amused by your small display of some responsibility. After all, such spot-on demands didn’t suit his lady, who usually spent her afternoons in the study with her toys. “We will carry them out directly to the letter.”

You bit your lower lip gently in thought and held on to the doll’s tiny hand in yours. “... No. Just clean up the manour a bit, make sure there aren’t any displeasing sights lying around that would upset our friend.”

You start to head to your bath, but a moment later you turn your head back slightly, pausing at the washroom door. “Send a carriage for her. At ten to the sixth hour in the evening, if you please. The finest horses we have in our stables—first impressions are the key to these successful business deals, after all.”

“Understood, my lady.” Then a moment of pause before he questioned: “Would you like me to turn on the water for you?” A small smirk twisted those thin lips, a familiar expression on the face of the demon. “I’m not quite sure you can handle it yourself.”

You didn’t bother with a reply, or even reasoning with the man as to why you could be trusted to handle yourself with the baths—why struggle with reality when it was already repeatedly beating you harshly about the head? The door to the washroom was slammed violently, leaving Sebastian to look after the tea cart.

The nauseating scent of sweet rosemary-lemon Verbena tea cake still lingered in the bedroom. Sebastian considered it with little uncertainty, then turned towards the washroom door, behind which the sound of running water was already starting up. He gave a small cough, knowing you could hear it clearly enough for it to catch your attention.

“I suppose you won’t want your tea and cake then, my lady,” he called through the door, and inside the washroom you clutch to the dress Claude had selected for you with a growl.

“No,” you shout through the door, pausing in the unbuttoning of your nightshirt, considering the morning meal that Sebastian brought up to your room. The blankly-staring doll sat on the sink and glared at you questioningly, as if demanding why you would turn down such a sweet, inviting breakfast. You ignored it and scoffed to yourself.

‘Cake, huh?’

Your stomach groaned appreciatively at the thought of the pastry. What was with this man and his sweets in the morning?

“... I hate cake.”

“Oh?” A long moment of silence on the other side of the door while the goddamned bastard pretended that he didn’t know about your dislike for the sweet pastry, as well-made as it always was. Then: “Of course, my lady.”

The sound of retreating footsteps left you calm, the stiffness of sleep finally wearing away from your bones as you lean over the sink with a groan.

‘Guests this evening?’ You thought to yourself as you pulled the baggy nightshirt from your shoulders, setting it aside on the sink and ignoring the heavily-scarred skin and the tattoo-like marks on the shoulders of the reflection imitating your actions in the glass of the mirror.

… Why hadn’t you had the servants clean up the night before instead of dealing with such troubling methods first thing in the morning? It would have been far more convenient to deal with preparations in advance, and you cursed your forgetful mind with a vengeance. Next time you’d remember to tell the servants to sweep up while you were in bed; that way you would be spared having them cleaning up all over the manour while you worked and studied.

‘… Never mind that. I suppose, with the end of today, we’ll be a step closer to finishing this ordeal up than I thought. There won’t be any more cause to worry after this night draws to a close. I won’t miss this opportunity—such a rare chance—not when such a heavy responsibility weighs on it. And I’m mature enough to take care of things like this on my own. Aren’t I?’

“After all, one must act their age, must they not?”

You eyed the doll, and it stared back in listlessness, not giving the answer you wanted. Well, that simply wouldn’t do.

You took it by the hand, feeling the smooth surface of the creature grip back. You headed over to the window, opened it carefully, and dropped the wretched thing down to the ground three stories below without a moment of hesitation.

There was the shattering of porcelain against the ground, and you turn back to adjust the water of the bath.

‘… At least that butler can’t ridicule me for being “childish” anymore.’

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

… “My lady.” There was a hint of concern in that tone, but more irritation than anything else. You swore you saw Sebastian’s eye twitch in disbelief. He spoke calmly but firmly, all the same: “Where is your corset?”

You only snarled back at Sebastian in triumph, the red-eyed butler tilting his head to the side as he scanned your form disapprovingly from the base of the staircase. You stood, three steps above him, staring down and considering your choice of words and how best to evade the possibility of having to go back and right the situation.

After all, to tell him that you’d lost it by throwing it out the window along with the doll was not acceptable.

‘… I really don’t like trivialities, anyways.’

“I didn’t want it,” you say at last, eyes narrowing at your manservant. “I’m not going to dress up so frivolously for something like breakfast.”

Sebastian pressed a gloved hand to his temples, sighing in half-defeat; it was pointless attempting to bargain with you, anyways. You were just about as stubborn as his last master, he grumbled to himself, only less far reasonable. He tried again: “At least change out of your night clothes and into your dress, then, my lady.”

“No,” you shot back immediately, climbing up onto the stair’s rail, sitting and perching on the metal bar precariously. “It’s just breakfast. There’s no one here except you, Claude, the servants, and myself. What’s there to be so concerned about?”

“You must present yourself, at all times—”

“I’ll be damned if I live to please all of society’s goddamned rules about etiquette and manners, Sebastian.” You slid down the rail, keeping your eye on the butler as you slid down and off the bar, carefully placing your bare feet onto the coolness of the marble floor. “There’s just no use conforming to society when all it wants to do is use you.”

The older man had a look of faint concern, but nevertheless he followed you, still clad in your nightshirt as you headed down towards the dining room. Brisk, long steps take the two of you past the ballroom, down the halls, and through another corridor, and he watches your slouched back as you walk, noting the absence of the usual doll or two.

“Sebastian!” you call back to him, eager to take your mind off the fact that one of your favourite toys was currently missing and shattered on the ground outside the back of the manour.

“Yes, my lady?” As cool and collected as always. Just as you expected. You say, loudly, anxious to drive the doll from your mind: “Is everything set up?”

“No”—and this time you hear some irritation in his voice—“but we are preparing to the best of our abilities.”

You nearly chortle aloud at his response as you trudge down the hall. It was always inexplicably fun to play around with Sebastian’s mentality; he was always so in control that it was entertaining when you managed to rile him up and fill his head up with your nonsense and immaturity.

It was all a game. A very long, very tedious game that could honestly use some excitement. And as boring as it was, you could not afford to lose a single round. Perhaps it was your fascination with toys that drove you to such feelings, but nevertheless those feelings were there and could not be brushed away easily.

… You hated losing.

Meanwhile, Sebastian drew his watch from his pocket and checked it carefully, eyes scanning the clean and spotless glass before placing the item back inside his coat, observing you with all the analytical keenness of a crow. He stared for a while at the once-more wrinkled nightshirt that replaced your dress, then at the bare feet that stepped down the wide corridor. The hair that he’d brushed back earlier for you had fallen over your face again, and you’d done nothing to fix yourself up a bit.

‘This girl,’ he thought to himself with a mental huff of annoyance, ‘is absolutely nothing like my past masters. However…

‘… in some ways, she is so very spoiled, just like him.’

“Claude!” you called out, and the butler looked up from where he was instructing the lowlier servants in their routine tasks outside the dining room. “Did you inform them about the guests yet?”

The few maids, lined up and standing against the wall, showed only slight appallment at your state of messiness, having already grown somewhat used to the sight over the few years that had passed. Tilting your head at them in acknowledgement, you merely turned away and moved down towards the head of the long table set in the centre of the room. You sat yourself down, pulling your knees up to your chest and placing your feet on the chair. The servants paid no attention to this (after all, they’d seen it often), and you eyed the blueberry scone on your plate, picking it up and turning it in your hands.

‘Well. At least Claude doesn’t make those abominable cakes like Sebastian does. Claude doesn’t seem to like sweets too much, does he?’

“My lady. You have your first instructor coming by in two hours,” Sebastian informed you as he strolled past your seat and towards the kitchen. “Finish up eating and prepare for your music lessons by then.”

“Yes, yes,” you said boredly, biting into the scone and chewing on the dry baked good. “I know.”

“You always say that, my lady,” Claude remarked dryly, posture are straight and elegant as ever. He raised a hand to adjust the glove smoothly over the skin, his eyes bored and clearly displaying his opinion of the tedious atmosphere. “However, action proves to be more efficient than words.”

That man seemed to despise words with a burning passion. Claude was unreadable and his behaviour clearly too complex to digest, so you turned away with no further interest in him and instead licked the last of the scone’s crumbs from your fingers. Then, wiping your hands on a napkin, you reached up to pat back still-damp hair.

Sebastian moved forward, comb in hand and looking murderous, and began to brush back the tangled, knotted mess with a sigh. “My lady,” he said with some slight concern that you didn’t believe in at all, “I insist that you take care of yourself.”

“After all,” continued Claude, having moved on to observing the state of the pristine white tablecloth and knitting his eyebrows together in disapproval. You could only think to yourself that he’d found a small wrinkle in the fabric and was at the moment highly anxious with it, but nevertheless he spoke on without the smallest hitch in his breath: “... we worry over your health, my lady.”

“Don’t,” you replied, picking your plate off of the table with both hands and handing it over to Sebastian, who raised an eyebrow and inquire: “Whatever has happened to your doll?” with not even a hint of regret in his knowing, calmly spoken words.

“I disposed of it,” you said very simply, and he took the plate from your hands, heading off towards the kitchen. There were other things to do—things that were preferably more enjoying than exchanging less than good-natured banter back and forth with the butler.

Your fingers twitched, and you gritted your teeth, staring down at the polished floor and wishing that there was something to hold in your hands. Something—anything would do, really. Then you thought it over. No, not anything, actually; there was nothing that would satisfy the empty sensation in your fingers but...

“... Sebastian?”

He glanced back, pausing in his step to eye you curiously. “Yes, my lady?”

“... Head down to the toy shop immediately after breakfast and purchase a new one for me.”

A small smirk spread across those shameless lips as he turned, ever so graceful as usual, and bowed low—an unusual display of compliance that brought a grin to your face. “Yes, my lady.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Claude was busy at work polishing the windows of the well-illuminated and unfortunately drapeless room—it baffled you how he insisted on wiping off the glass and making it as clear and transparent as ever when, in your opinion, a bit of cloudiness suited your purposes best, as long as it kept out the sun.

“Stop it, Claude,” you ordered, stretching out lazily, lying on your back in the carpet in the centre of the room where you were clutching an overstuffed rabbit in your arms.

You gave it an experimental squeeze, and the toy responded with a loyal squeak. You murmured in approval and set it aside, opting instead for moving towards the colourful blocks that lay in disarray four feet away from you. Carefully, you set up the largest rectangular block, a bright red one about the size of a small novel, firmly in the carpet before picking up another and stacking it on top with a slow certainty.

Sebastian constantly scolded you for being so childish as to play with toys; it seemed he enjoyed subtly ridiculing you to the best of his abilities. As if you cared whatever he thought of you.

“My lady,” droned the monotonous voice of the butler, “it would be unfit for one such as yourself to be playing in a room with dirty windows. The manour must be kept in top conditions at all times, regardless of the situation.”

“It’s a useless effort,” you grumbled, easily placing the seventh block on top to create a tower about as tall as you were when seated. “It’ll get dirty again, anyways. Pay no mind to this room—no one will intrude. You should be concerned with the places the guests will be barging into.”

“Sebastian is, at the moment, taking care of such areas. When I am done here, I will join him.” Claude glanced towards you, glasses reflecting the insistent glare of the sun, and you raised a hand to shield yourself from the white light that beat against your form.

“I don’t want this room done,” you protested, laying the tenth block on your stack despite the sunlight hampering your task. You narrow your eyes and squinted so you could continue your building. “It’s too bright in here, anyways.”

“You should have gotten drapes for it, then, instead of leaving the task to linger,” reproached Claude in the coldest manner possible, still wiping down the windows diligently.

“Order some, then.”

“At this point, your favourite company for these curtains has run out of the proper drapes for a window of this size. It will take two weeks to restock and several days to arrive here from China.”

“Damn it.”

“Language, m’lady,” he said, passionless as ever, as he went on with his boring task. You grumbled about deaf butlers and stacked a fifteenth block on your multi-coloured tower, retorting: “Nobody cares if I don’t watch my language in a place like this.”

“We do,” he said crossly, and left it at that.

… The twenty-seventh block topped off the wobbling stack as you stepped back, impressed with yourself. “I’m sure you do,” you say, hardly concerned with his words as you rummage around in the toy chest for another plaything to amuse yourself with. “So you always say.”

“My lady,” he interrupted, glancing away from the spotless windows and at the clock hung high on the wall on the other side of the room. “I believe that it’s half an hour’s time to send the carriage to our guest. I suggest that you call Persephone up and have her help you prepare to meet your visitor.”

“This soon?” You spared the clock a quick look and was devastated to find that Claude was correct. How tragic, to have to leave your playroom already to prepare for something so promisingly tedious. “... Fine. I’ll call her up in a few moments. And Claude, leave those windows alone.”

He didn’t appear pleased about it, but nevertheless he made to step away from the glass, moving swiftly across the room until he was out and down the hall. You heard him call, with the enthusiasm of an rock, to Sebastian, who replied just as loudly with ease and cheer in his voice as the door creaked shut silently.

You stopped rifling through the toy chest and stopped, eyes moving up to the unsteady tower of blocks that still remained. Then you searched through the box curiously and retrieved from its solemn depths a fake rapier. Sebastian didn’t approve of you carrying a real sword around for fear that you would slice all the drapes in the house to pieces. Which was exactly what had become of the unfortunate curtains of this room.

You positioned the blade in your hand and thrust forward, practicing the precise and quick swing of the sword. It had been a while since you practiced—Claude insisted that the study of swordplay was not appropriate for a woman such as yourself.

‘… It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it.’

You switched the sword to your left hand, moving the wooden replica sharply to the side, aiming for something object unseen to the rest of the world. You didn’t care if Claude thought so; you did as you please, ever since that day.

‘So long… since I properly thought about that day. So long since I’ve stopped and thought about that night.’

The fake blade swung down violently towards the ground, then snapped back up again as you twisted the hilt and thrust upwards. It was all a game—child’s play, really, just an amusing activity to pass the time. None of it mattered—none of it. After all, this human life was ever so sweet and brief.

You turned and aimed, pushing the rapier forward with all the accuracy you could pin down, towards the tower.

It’s been years since I came here.

You sat, surrounded by tumbling blocks of green, red, and blue, and watched them fall.

‘Three years since I came to the decision to serve the Queen with all my soul.

‘Three years since the death of my parents.

‘Three years since I took over the household and declared myself the new head of the (Last Name) family.’

You sat, surrounded by the fallen tower, and hummed to yourself with amusement as you lifted a sagging sleeve to run a hand through drying hair. The time was approaching for you to make your appearance before the guest, and Sebastian would want you dressed up and ready for the matter.

It was all so very boring.

So very pointless.

…

‘It’s all really just a game, after all.’

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ClaudexReaderxSebastian, Part 9
Your Butlers, Playful

… It was morning. Bright, streaming sunshine swept the curtains aside and entered without pause, filling the room with golden glow that was welcome to your roaming eyes as you moved through across the carpet and went from one toy to the next.

It was a room filled with playthings, with trains and blocks and towers of dice—a room for children, but you didn’t care.
After all, Mother was here, and Father, too. They weren’t working for once; instead, they were sitting in the armchairs by the fire, and they were laughing. How odd, for your parents to be here to watch you play and to chatter with each other at ease.

How strange. But nevertheless, nothing has never been normal in this family. You were just glad they were here, to be near you, to be within your grasp at every moment. It would be possible to play without troublesome thoughts flooding your mind now that you knew they wouldn’t leave, and that they’d stay with you. It was an odd feeling, one that brought warmth and comfort… all you wanted to do was remain in this toy-filled room for hours, to ensure that your dear mother and father would never stray far from you… an eternity of calmness and warmth.
You fingered the toy train and laughed. An odd sound, in your own ears. But Mother and Father turned to smile at you, and that was all that you needed to feel perfectly fine again.
Everyone was happy. There was no blood, no tears, no sadness.
What could be better?
"(Name)...?"

… If only dreams could last...

“My, my. Asleep at this late hour of the morning. You are certainly all show and no effort, my lady.”

A chuckle of amusement. Then the curtains parted with a rattling of metal against metal, velvet swiftly folding in on itself, and bright sunlight pounded harshly at your closed eyes. You shut them tighter, moaned with frustration, and turned over, attempting futilely to suffocate yourself in your own pillow.

‘Another dream…? They’re getting more regular by the day.’

It wasn’t the first time you dreamt of your parents; of them being alive and safe and by your side. There had been many of those dreams after that night, all of them steadily fading into blackness, pushed to the back of your mind where you could not salvage them. Then again, that was for the best.
It certainly was all wishful thinking, something you didn’t want to reflect on. What was the point of lingering in the past when you could move on and leave it all behind, anyways? ... But lately, the dreams had been making a comeback.
'Perhaps I haven't put enough effort into forgetting,' you suggested to yourself.
However, trying very hard to forget was rather difficult with Sebastian looming over your treacherously.

“I will have to ask you to rise from bed immediately, my lady. Oversleeping will not do for someone of your status and responsibility. Now, up.”

‘God damn that butler. Can’t he just let me sleep?’

In a wise insight, you curled up on yourself and gripped onto your pillow more tightly, protecting it from the wrathful grasp of Butler Sebastian Michaelis. But soon enough, despite your pitiful efforts, that pillow was wrenched away from under your head, and the blankets were yanked off your limp form. Disregarding your groping efforts to reclaim them, the demon bastard dangled them out of your reach with his treacherous smile, as always, and bowed his head in mock politeness.

You sat up at last, shaking the sleep from your posture, and glared.

“... what the hell. Sebastian.”

You hated his games in the early morning, how he always demanded you be up by the seventh hour. There was never much to do, anyways: your late-father’s company could certainly run on its own once in a while, and it wasn’t as if you were obliged to pay your instructors any attention. You were intelligent enough, and Sebastian knew it—after all, he tutored you occasionally and was certainly aware of your level of thought process. What was the use of education when there was little it could give you at this point?

“My lady,” he said with smooth fearlessness at your griping mood, “I’m afraid you have duties to attend to today. I will not allow you to shut yourself up in your bedroom and sleep the day away.”

“I’m exhausted,” you moaned, reaching for the pillow hanging somewhere above your head—your eyes were still shut away from the sun. Another wise decision on my part, you decide firmly. “I don’t want to get up.”

His brows furrowed, and then he smirked with amusement. “I apologize my lady, but you instructed me that if ever you were to refuse to rise at the proper time, I am allowed to use force.” He paused, considering, before adding: “It’s your own fault for staying up so late to work. I expected you in bed at the proper time, but it appears I cannot rely on you to keep your word.”

You stared at him, the cogs of your mind slowly turning as you worked out your situation and how much of an advantage you were likely to have in a battle over a demon butler who was most likely adept in several hundred martial arts techniques. Then you shifted to the side of your bed and nudged your feet into the slippers waiting on the carpet and made to stand, scowling with sleep deprivation all the while.

Yes, Sebastian was right. You would never stay up past bedtime again, not for paperwork or for late business deals called in at the very last moment. The butler was suitably intelligent beyond his human years, far more than you were, and you decided that taking his advice would most likely resolve in a more desirable mood when waking up in the morning.

The toxic miasma of Sebastian’s cooking was already drenching the air with sweetness, and you ignored it, nearly gagging from the smell of what could only be described as solid, substantial murder. Was Sebastian trying to poison you with a sugar overdose? That did it—you’d have to watch that man from now on in the case that he turned to mutiny with cake as his weapon.

Sebastian scoffed at your ridiculous display of enthusiasm, at the wrinkled nose that greeted the smell of what he called “breakfast”. His expression was as regal and proud as ever, and he stepped forward and handed you a neatly folded dress with one arm, the other on the tea cart he’d wheeled in before parting the drapes. “My lady: the clothes that Mr. Faustus chose for you today.”

‘… Oh, brilliant.’

While Claude was a decent tailor, you weren’t in the mood for dressing up; you’d never liked tight clothes, especially so early in the day. One glance at the fancy frills and ornate lace and you felt as if Claude was trying to compensate for something. You glared down at the folded dress, a dark and lovely shade of burgundy, and grumbled: “Do I have to wear it?”

“It would be wise, my lady,” said the Raven with a smirk on thin, pink lips.

You took a moment or so to digest this, then asked: “... Do I have to wear a corset?”

You hated those damned things. Oh, how you hated them—as if ruffles and ribbons weren’t enough, society just had to stuff you into an ingeniously diguised device of strangulation that made hundreds of ladies appear far thinner than deemed healthy. Apparently the ostentatious pomps weren’t aware of what those objects did to their health.

Sebastian’s smile widened. “Of course, my lady. We must make you presentable, must we not?” He placed a hand on his hip and adjusted a pair of glasses with the other—you gathered that he’d been reading quite a bit earlier if he’d deemed a need for his spectacles. “A lady such as yourself, a daughter of an earl, must be dressed magnificently and refined in every manner possible.”

He was mocking you. And you knew it.

“And I, my dear Sebastian, am very tempted to rip out your vocal chords at this point.”

You squinted up at him, the sunlight penetrating the lids of your eyes and blinding your vision with white. “How impossibly cocky can you get at this time of day? I’ll have to write this down as a new record.”

Sebastian removed something from his pocket—a lovely little silver comb—and brushes through your hair until the locks no longer fall, bothersome, into your eyes, and the strands are pushed back behind your ears neatly. You make a noncommittal noise of boredom as he tucks a last strand of hair behind your ear, and then you draw in a breath and puff it out as hard as you can at his face; dark raven threads fall onto the pallid skin, and the butler gives a sigh and brushes them back without a fret.

“Please, no games right now, my lady. So, as I was saying...”

He went on with no heed to your prior remark, patting your nightclothes and brushing off the wrinkles; you knit your eyebrows together in frustration, looking with dislike down at the long shirt that trailed down to your knees and served as a nightgown of sorts. You watched the butler brush the shirt off and frowned; it would only be washed and pressed later, so why bother now with the neatness? Butlers were such trivial-minded men.

You picked up a doll off the bed where it had been sitting beside your pillow since the night before, forgotten by the toy box. It was hard, solid, and smooth, the glossy skin of the form of a little girl glinting back at you in the sunlight. You took the doll—that lovely, porcelain little thing that you half wanted to hurl to the floor right now—and settled it in your lap.

You toyed with the blonde, fake curls and the glassy skin, rubbing a finger against the lifeless ice-blue eyes of the inanimate creature as Sebastian kept speaking: “You are a high-ranked woman of society, Lady (Name). Learn your place.”

Dark ruby eyes rose to yours, the confidence in them startling. You snarled at the cocky expression, your hold on the doll tightening, and Sebastian finished brushing off your clothes with a final word of: “Please do try to act civilized.” A smirk, then a calm order of: “Please get ready for your morning bath, my lady.”

Then he stepped away and headed towards the tea cart at the foot of the bed, acting as if no words had ever been exchanged between the two of you. A perfect façade for one so devilishly secretive. You stand for a moment, shifting your weight from foot to foot and considering his advice, when suddenly it struck you.

‘… Civilized? He thinks I’m not civilized? Ha! Who the hell says I’m not civilized?’

“God damn you,” you snapped at him, and the butler only smiles. “I act my age perfectly.” You tightened your hold on the doll, glaring as he smirked knowingly, eyes burning through your mind and reading the truth.

“Then,” said Sebastian with a kindly smile that was surely fake, “would you like me to take that doll away for you? I’ll clean your mansion up the best I can and dispose of all these…” He paused, then smirked again. “... childish toys. After all, one must act their age, must they not?”

It was said almost playfully, nearly condescendingly. He reached out, with a long arm, and extended gloved, slender fingers, inviting the doll into his hold. You jerked it away quickly, hugging it against your chest. You liked your toys—they were things that no one else could touch, things that belonged to you, and you could do with them as you pleased. Sebastian would die if he laid a finger on this doll.

“Belt it. I’m not in a pleasant mood today,” you informed him with all the royal air you could muster, your frown deepening. You gathered up the clothes he left on your bed and headed towards the washroom. “Go down, and do something else. I don’t know—get Claude to start breakfast already or something.”

“He started the preparations for food over an hour ago. My, my, you are very cranky in the morning hours,” commented Sebastian with a small smile that certainly looked haughty on him. “And I thought you couldn’t get any feistier after the last week’s occurrence, when you flung your entire toy bin at Mr. Faustus when he tried dragging you out of be—”

“Get the servants ready, Sebastian.” You cut him off, not interested in hearing any more of his useless teasings. There was a time for that later, and you would certainly not let him push your buttons this early in the morning. Then you remembered: “We’ll be having a guest this evening. I want things to be proper for their arrival.”

“Any specific orders, my lady?” The man sounded amused by your small display of some responsibility. After all, such spot-on demands didn’t suit his lady, who usually spent her afternoons in the study with her toys. “We will carry them out directly to the letter.”

You bit your lower lip gently in thought and held on to the doll’s tiny hand in yours. “... No. Just clean up the manour a bit, make sure there aren’t any displeasing sights lying around that would upset our friend.”

You start to head to your bath, but a moment later you turn your head back slightly, pausing at the washroom door. “Send a carriage for her. At ten to the sixth hour in the evening, if you please. The finest horses we have in our stables—first impressions are the key to these successful business deals, after all.”

“Understood, my lady.” Then a moment of pause before he questioned: “Would you like me to turn on the water for you?” A small smirk twisted those thin lips, a familiar expression on the face of the demon. “I’m not quite sure you can handle it yourself.”

You didn’t bother with a reply, or even reasoning with the man as to why you could be trusted to handle yourself with the baths—why struggle with reality when it was already repeatedly beating you harshly about the head? The door to the washroom was slammed violently, leaving Sebastian to look after the tea cart.

The nauseating scent of sweet rosemary-lemon Verbena tea cake still lingered in the bedroom. Sebastian considered it with little uncertainty, then turned towards the washroom door, behind which the sound of running water was already starting up. He gave a small cough, knowing you could hear it clearly enough for it to catch your attention.

“I suppose you won’t want your tea and cake then, my lady,” he called through the door, and inside the washroom you clutch to the dress Claude had selected for you with a growl.

“No,” you shout through the door, pausing in the unbuttoning of your nightshirt, considering the morning meal that Sebastian brought up to your room. The blankly-staring doll sat on the sink and glared at you questioningly, as if demanding why you would turn down such a sweet, inviting breakfast. You ignored it and scoffed to yourself.

‘Cake, huh?’

Your stomach groaned appreciatively at the thought of the pastry. What was with this man and his sweets in the morning?

“... I hate cake.”

“Oh?” A long moment of silence on the other side of the door while the goddamned bastard pretended that he didn’t know about your dislike for the sweet pastry, as well-made as it always was. Then: “Of course, my lady.”

The sound of retreating footsteps left you calm, the stiffness of sleep finally wearing away from your bones as you lean over the sink with a groan.

‘Guests this evening?’ You thought to yourself as you pulled the baggy nightshirt from your shoulders, setting it aside on the sink and ignoring the heavily-scarred skin and the tattoo-like marks on the shoulders of the reflection imitating your actions in the glass of the mirror.

… Why hadn’t you had the servants clean up the night before instead of dealing with such troubling methods first thing in the morning? It would have been far more convenient to deal with preparations in advance, and you cursed your forgetful mind with a vengeance. Next time you’d remember to tell the servants to sweep up while you were in bed; that way you would be spared having them cleaning up all over the manour while you worked and studied.

‘… Never mind that. I suppose, with the end of today, we’ll be a step closer to finishing this ordeal up than I thought. There won’t be any more cause to worry after this night draws to a close. I won’t miss this opportunity—such a rare chance—not when such a heavy responsibility weighs on it. And I’m mature enough to take care of things like this on my own. Aren’t I?’

“After all, one must act their age, must they not?”

You eyed the doll, and it stared back in listlessness, not giving the answer you wanted. Well, that simply wouldn’t do.

You took it by the hand, feeling the smooth surface of the creature grip back. You headed over to the window, opened it carefully, and dropped the wretched thing down to the ground three stories below without a moment of hesitation.

There was the shattering of porcelain against the ground, and you turn back to adjust the water of the bath.

‘… At least that butler can’t ridicule me for being “childish” anymore.’

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

… “My lady.” There was a hint of concern in that tone, but more irritation than anything else. You swore you saw Sebastian’s eye twitch in disbelief. He spoke calmly but firmly, all the same: “Where is your corset?”

You only snarled back at Sebastian in triumph, the red-eyed butler tilting his head to the side as he scanned your form disapprovingly from the base of the staircase. You stood, three steps above him, staring down and considering your choice of words and how best to evade the possibility of having to go back and right the situation.

After all, to tell him that you’d lost it by throwing it out the window along with the doll was not acceptable.

‘… I really don’t like trivialities, anyways.’

“I didn’t want it,” you say at last, eyes narrowing at your manservant. “I’m not going to dress up so frivolously for something like breakfast.”

Sebastian pressed a gloved hand to his temples, sighing in half-defeat; it was pointless attempting to bargain with you, anyways. You were just about as stubborn as his last master, he grumbled to himself, only less far reasonable. He tried again: “At least change out of your night clothes and into your dress, then, my lady.”

“No,” you shot back immediately, climbing up onto the stair’s rail, sitting and perching on the metal bar precariously. “It’s just breakfast. There’s no one here except you, Claude, the servants, and myself. What’s there to be so concerned about?”

“You must present yourself, at all times—”

“I’ll be damned if I live to please all of society’s goddamned rules about etiquette and manners, Sebastian.” You slid down the rail, keeping your eye on the butler as you slid down and off the bar, carefully placing your bare feet onto the coolness of the marble floor. “There’s just no use conforming to society when all it wants to do is use you.”

The older man had a look of faint concern, but nevertheless he followed you, still clad in your nightshirt as you headed down towards the dining room. Brisk, long steps take the two of you past the ballroom, down the halls, and through another corridor, and he watches your slouched back as you walk, noting the absence of the usual doll or two.

“Sebastian!” you call back to him, eager to take your mind off the fact that one of your favourite toys was currently missing and shattered on the ground outside the back of the manour.

“Yes, my lady?” As cool and collected as always. Just as you expected. You say, loudly, anxious to drive the doll from your mind: “Is everything set up?”

“No”—and this time you hear some irritation in his voice—“but we are preparing to the best of our abilities.”

You nearly chortle aloud at his response as you trudge down the hall. It was always inexplicably fun to play around with Sebastian’s mentality; he was always so in control that it was entertaining when you managed to rile him up and fill his head up with your nonsense and immaturity.

It was all a game. A very long, very tedious game that could honestly use some excitement. And as boring as it was, you could not afford to lose a single round. Perhaps it was your fascination with toys that drove you to such feelings, but nevertheless those feelings were there and could not be brushed away easily.

… You hated losing.

Meanwhile, Sebastian drew his watch from his pocket and checked it carefully, eyes scanning the clean and spotless glass before placing the item back inside his coat, observing you with all the analytical keenness of a crow. He stared for a while at the once-more wrinkled nightshirt that replaced your dress, then at the bare feet that stepped down the wide corridor. The hair that he’d brushed back earlier for you had fallen over your face again, and you’d done nothing to fix yourself up a bit.

‘This girl,’ he thought to himself with a mental huff of annoyance, ‘is absolutely nothing like my past masters. However…

‘… in some ways, she is so very spoiled, just like him.’

“Claude!” you called out, and the butler looked up from where he was instructing the lowlier servants in their routine tasks outside the dining room. “Did you inform them about the guests yet?”

The few maids, lined up and standing against the wall, showed only slight appallment at your state of messiness, having already grown somewhat used to the sight over the few years that had passed. Tilting your head at them in acknowledgement, you merely turned away and moved down towards the head of the long table set in the centre of the room. You sat yourself down, pulling your knees up to your chest and placing your feet on the chair. The servants paid no attention to this (after all, they’d seen it often), and you eyed the blueberry scone on your plate, picking it up and turning it in your hands.

‘Well. At least Claude doesn’t make those abominable cakes like Sebastian does. Claude doesn’t seem to like sweets too much, does he?’

“My lady. You have your first instructor coming by in two hours,” Sebastian informed you as he strolled past your seat and towards the kitchen. “Finish up eating and prepare for your music lessons by then.”

“Yes, yes,” you said boredly, biting into the scone and chewing on the dry baked good. “I know.”

“You always say that, my lady,” Claude remarked dryly, posture are straight and elegant as ever. He raised a hand to adjust the glove smoothly over the skin, his eyes bored and clearly displaying his opinion of the tedious atmosphere. “However, action proves to be more efficient than words.”

That man seemed to despise words with a burning passion. Claude was unreadable and his behaviour clearly too complex to digest, so you turned away with no further interest in him and instead licked the last of the scone’s crumbs from your fingers. Then, wiping your hands on a napkin, you reached up to pat back still-damp hair.

Sebastian moved forward, comb in hand and looking murderous, and began to brush back the tangled, knotted mess with a sigh. “My lady,” he said with some slight concern that you didn’t believe in at all, “I insist that you take care of yourself.”

“After all,” continued Claude, having moved on to observing the state of the pristine white tablecloth and knitting his eyebrows together in disapproval. You could only think to yourself that he’d found a small wrinkle in the fabric and was at the moment highly anxious with it, but nevertheless he spoke on without the smallest hitch in his breath: “... we worry over your health, my lady.”

“Don’t,” you replied, picking your plate off of the table with both hands and handing it over to Sebastian, who raised an eyebrow and inquire: “Whatever has happened to your doll?” with not even a hint of regret in his knowing, calmly spoken words.

“I disposed of it,” you said very simply, and he took the plate from your hands, heading off towards the kitchen. There were other things to do—things that were preferably more enjoying than exchanging less than good-natured banter back and forth with the butler.

Your fingers twitched, and you gritted your teeth, staring down at the polished floor and wishing that there was something to hold in your hands. Something—anything would do, really. Then you thought it over. No, not anything, actually; there was nothing that would satisfy the empty sensation in your fingers but...

“... Sebastian?”

He glanced back, pausing in his step to eye you curiously. “Yes, my lady?”

“... Head down to the toy shop immediately after breakfast and purchase a new one for me.”

A small smirk spread across those shameless lips as he turned, ever so graceful as usual, and bowed low—an unusual display of compliance that brought a grin to your face. “Yes, my lady.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Claude was busy at work polishing the windows of the well-illuminated and unfortunately drapeless room—it baffled you how he insisted on wiping off the glass and making it as clear and transparent as ever when, in your opinion, a bit of cloudiness suited your purposes best, as long as it kept out the sun.

“Stop it, Claude,” you ordered, stretching out lazily, lying on your back in the carpet in the centre of the room where you were clutching an overstuffed rabbit in your arms.

You gave it an experimental squeeze, and the toy responded with a loyal squeak. You murmured in approval and set it aside, opting instead for moving towards the colourful blocks that lay in disarray four feet away from you. Carefully, you set up the largest rectangular block, a bright red one about the size of a small novel, firmly in the carpet before picking up another and stacking it on top with a slow certainty.

Sebastian constantly scolded you for being so childish as to play with toys; it seemed he enjoyed subtly ridiculing you to the best of his abilities. As if you cared whatever he thought of you.

“My lady,” droned the monotonous voice of the butler, “it would be unfit for one such as yourself to be playing in a room with dirty windows. The manour must be kept in top conditions at all times, regardless of the situation.”

“It’s a useless effort,” you grumbled, easily placing the seventh block on top to create a tower about as tall as you were when seated. “It’ll get dirty again, anyways. Pay no mind to this room—no one will intrude. You should be concerned with the places the guests will be barging into.”

“Sebastian is, at the moment, taking care of such areas. When I am done here, I will join him.” Claude glanced towards you, glasses reflecting the insistent glare of the sun, and you raised a hand to shield yourself from the white light that beat against your form.

“I don’t want this room done,” you protested, laying the tenth block on your stack despite the sunlight hampering your task. You narrow your eyes and squinted so you could continue your building. “It’s too bright in here, anyways.”

“You should have gotten drapes for it, then, instead of leaving the task to linger,” reproached Claude in the coldest manner possible, still wiping down the windows diligently.

“Order some, then.”

“At this point, your favourite company for these curtains has run out of the proper drapes for a window of this size. It will take two weeks to restock and several days to arrive here from China.”

“Damn it.”

“Language, m’lady,” he said, passionless as ever, as he went on with his boring task. You grumbled about deaf butlers and stacked a fifteenth block on your multi-coloured tower, retorting: “Nobody cares if I don’t watch my language in a place like this.”

“We do,” he said crossly, and left it at that.

… The twenty-seventh block topped off the wobbling stack as you stepped back, impressed with yourself. “I’m sure you do,” you say, hardly concerned with his words as you rummage around in the toy chest for another plaything to amuse yourself with. “So you always say.”

“My lady,” he interrupted, glancing away from the spotless windows and at the clock hung high on the wall on the other side of the room. “I believe that it’s half an hour’s time to send the carriage to our guest. I suggest that you call Persephone up and have her help you prepare to meet your visitor.”

“This soon?” You spared the clock a quick look and was devastated to find that Claude was correct. How tragic, to have to leave your playroom already to prepare for something so promisingly tedious. “... Fine. I’ll call her up in a few moments. And Claude, leave those windows alone.”

He didn’t appear pleased about it, but nevertheless he made to step away from the glass, moving swiftly across the room until he was out and down the hall. You heard him call, with the enthusiasm of an rock, to Sebastian, who replied just as loudly with ease and cheer in his voice as the door creaked shut silently.

You stopped rifling through the toy chest and stopped, eyes moving up to the unsteady tower of blocks that still remained. Then you searched through the box curiously and retrieved from its solemn depths a fake rapier. Sebastian didn’t approve of you carrying a real sword around for fear that you would slice all the drapes in the house to pieces. Which was exactly what had become of the unfortunate curtains of this room.

You positioned the blade in your hand and thrust forward, practicing the precise and quick swing of the sword. It had been a while since you practiced—Claude insisted that the study of swordplay was not appropriate for a woman such as yourself.

‘… It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it.’

You switched the sword to your left hand, moving the wooden replica sharply to the side, aiming for something object unseen to the rest of the world. You didn’t care if Claude thought so; you did as you please, ever since that day.

‘So long… since I properly thought about that day. So long since I’ve stopped and thought about that night.’

The fake blade swung down violently towards the ground, then snapped back up again as you twisted the hilt and thrust upwards. It was all a game—child’s play, really, just an amusing activity to pass the time. None of it mattered—none of it. After all, this human life was ever so sweet and brief.

You turned and aimed, pushing the rapier forward with all the accuracy you could pin down, towards the tower.

It’s been years since I came here.

You sat, surrounded by tumbling blocks of green, red, and blue, and watched them fall.

‘Three years since I came to the decision to serve the Queen with all my soul.

‘Three years since the death of my parents.

‘Three years since I took over the household and declared myself the new head of the (Last Name) family.’

You sat, surrounded by the fallen tower, and hummed to yourself with amusement as you lifted a sagging sleeve to run a hand through drying hair. The time was approaching for you to make your appearance before the guest, and Sebastian would want you dressed up and ready for the matter.

It was all so very boring.

So very pointless.

…

‘It’s all really just a game, after all.’