A/N: PLEASE READ! Okay, before we begin, I would just quickly like to say a few things. First, This is a gender-bend story. As much as I love male Ciel, I've changed him to a girl for the whole purpose of exploring all the conflicts he would go through as a woman in power in the 19th century. If you just can not stand the idea of Ciel of a girl and are just too in love with original concept, I hold nothing against you. Please just do not leave hate because you have been warned. Second, I'm definitely not a grammar genius so if you see any mistakes or awkwardness please forgive me and let me know. You won't hurt my feelings, I promise! Constructive Criticism is our friend! Okay, shew! I think that's it guys. Enjoy!
The Lady Phantomhive
Chapter 1: part 1
Hell. A word with substantial weight that means the eternal resting place of those condemned by God to pay for the crimes they have committed in their mortal life times . Throughout my childhood, I had heard of this place, from the occasional church services my parents attended to my old nanny that was constantly sticking her crooked fat finger in my face and telling me never to lie to her, or else I would go to Hell because God hates liars.
I never knew what the word actually meant though. Not until that night.
My parents bed was forever an ocean of linen. Their familiar scents covered each cotton thread and surrounded me like a warm cloud. Their bed was a sort of safe haven to me, I would run to it when a nightmare had woken me or hide under it whenever the old maid was out to scold me for a trick I had played on her. After a while, my parents had banned me from their resting place. They told me I had to stop running from my fears and face them. I reluctantly obeyed to their wishes and was only allowed in on only special occasions.
That night was my birthday ,and with care my parents had tucked me into the very center of their large bed and each wished me goodnight with a soft kiss. What woke me that night was not the feeling of their bodies settling next to mine , but something far worse.
A single scream ricocheted off the endless halls of the manor. With a sudden jump, I had awoken from my sweet child's dreams to hear the end of the disturbing noise. I sat up in bed looking around with wet, blurry eyes. The smell that covered me was no longer their comforting perfume but the suffocating, musty scent of smoke.
The room had turned silent again. The only thing I could hear was my poor heart screaming in my ears.
"Momma... Papa...?" I called into the silence. No voice replied.
My heart screamed louder and louder. I wanted to crawl under the sheets and hide my head until I fell asleep again. Something took hold of me though, and I found myself crawling off the bed with shaking legs.
It seemed like it took me eternity to finally reach the door and despite every instinct I had, I opened it.
Smoke rolled out in large curling black clouds, like a train had ripped through my home. I could barely see the hand that hung by my side. Coughs wracked my body. My already weak lungs were dying. I fought to remain standing.
Somehow my hands found the wall beside me and I clung to it like it was the Savior himself. I would have stayed there, choking, and afraid if I hadn't heard a second scream. This one much more deeper than the last, more masculine by some means. I had to find its source.
Soon I found myself shambling down the halls of my home. The further I went, the worse the smoke seemed. I didn't know it yet, but I was walking into the heart of the inferno. It seemed like eternity that I stumbled through with blind watering eyes, and a shaking faint heart until fire gave light to a crumpled and twisted figure.
My old governess lay just inches away from my feet. Her neck that had once contained hundred of folds upon folds was hacked into a garnet abyss. My mind could not make sense of what my eyes saw. The fire concealed most of the blood's stupefying red tint so I only saw it's black outline, but seeing the crone laying there so unnaturally on the floor affected my consciousness. She hated filth in all of its forms. In all her years with me, she had never once sat down on a rug to play with me, or teach me, because she had deemed the floor dirty, yet here she was, lying on the carpet with vacant eyes.
I thought about touching her. Maybe nudging her with tip of my big toe. Terror and fascination held to too me tightly though, and I was frozen in my place until I heard another scream that snapped me out of my wanderings.
Images of chaos gathered around me as I stumbled on my journey in a wheezing trance. The rafters far above me were beginning to crack and moan from the sudden concentration of heat, until they fell miserably to the ground ;whole doors had been swallowed by flames causing them to look like portals of Hell; but in my daze, I hardly saw any of it. It seemed like in those moments, my whole purpose of existence on this earth was to find that miserable howling and its source. I could think of nothing else but the dreadful sound.
My recollection of the scream led me down countless halls ,all filled with their own scenes of terror. The farther I went the more my vision was crowded by dancing black blots. My heart had never seized its fretting and my feeble lungs were constricting uncontrollably. The threat of collapsing was like a heavy brick in the back of my mind that kept getting bigger and bigger, getting closer to its ultimate goal of crushing my consciousness entirely. If I have ever been anything in my life though, I have been persevering.
Finally, I found a door that seemed the answer to the seemingly endless question of where the sound had originated. It was the last door at the very end of an extremely long hallway, or maybe it was only long because of my perception of time and the obstacles that littered the passageway. Whatever the reason though, I finally fulfilled my tiresome purpose and with its absolution came the semi-return of my senses, and with my senses came familiarity.
The door frame which I stumbled to was a rather large one compared to the rest in the house. The door it held, was also abnormally large. In the frame's strong wood, ten neat notches had been carved, one for every year of my growth. Without even opening that door, I knew what I would find: tall shelves stuffed with the golden spines of medical dictionaries, law books, and encyclopedias and with the worn covers of ancient knowledge that the previous owners had placed within; a long mahogany table that had matching chairs except for one that was made of iron and had a design of flowers running across the back, which I had traced countless times; There was a immense rug underneath that table that had a pattern of purple irises, soft white daises, golden daffodils, and ornate red roses on it, and I would often crawl under that same table and pretend I was in my own secret meadow.
Somehow I also knew what else would be in that room. The books would be already burned and reduced to worthless ash, even the ones with the pretty pictures inside that I had so admired. The rug would not be ablaze just yet; however, similar stains of black garnet like in my governess's wrinkled throat would have already overcome my treasured play area. The mahogany's carefully polished surface would be reflecting the bright orange haze that would be its doom. And at last, that grand iron chair would be filled not by its usual pillows of splendor, but with the heavy carcass of my father.
I knew it. In that antagonizing, life taking heat, I knew with every single fiber in my body what lay beyond that door. In a frightening epiphany, I knew that my father would be sitting there silent and lifeless waiting there for a stranger to find him; yet , it would be me, his sick little daughter, his only child and heir, that would find him in his slaughter.
Unconsciously , I had led myself to my father's library and unconsciously my bare feet had taken me to my fate. Despite the searing truth of my strange predictions, I couldn't make myself take hold of door's handle. A part of me still denied everything. "My parents are alive," I kept thinking. Voices began to sound somewhere, and to validate the hopeful lie I had created for myself, I convinced myself that they were my parents' voices. To prove that they were still alive, though I had to open the door ,and with a sort of anxious glee, I did.
Sometimes I wish I never had...
"Papa?!" I screamed, practically shoving through the door. I wanted to get this moment over with as quickly as possible and to prove , as much as I love being right, that I was wrong.
To my dread, I was right. I was right to every last detail except for the fact that my father's body wasn't the only corpse in the room. On the floor, just inches away from his feet, my mother's golden head lay against that beautiful rug; the vicinity around her dyed crimson.
My world stopped in one horrifying moment. Everything turned to red. The ceiling was red, the floor and the walls were red, my hands were red, even my scream seemed to take on the vivid color.
It was all red until suddenly my throat was grabbed and a large hand descended up my face to smother me. I hardly even struggled when the color that seized me next was a bottomless black.
xXx
Yet another A/N: Soooooo, thoughts? Good? Bad? Yay? Nay? Again, I apologize if you found in errors. I tried to get my Beta to look over it, but it's been about ten days since I sent it to her so I think it's fair to said that's probably never going to happen. I tried to look over this myself, but it's really late and I'm like half alive, so I don't if that worked out too well or not. Hopefully when I wake up, I won't regret this too badly. (sighs) I just need new people. Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this little story so far. As you more than likely saw at the top, this is only part one of chapter one. There will be two other parts that will be sort of lengthy so I decided to break it up to make it easier to read, well that and I was excited to post this fanfic! It's my first Black Butler fic so I'm pretty excited. I've also kind of grown attached to my little Celine (a.k.a fem!Ciel) . I have so many ideas and headcanons that it's kind of ridiculous. I've also thought about doing a little collection of stories about Sebastian's past and all his previous masters and mischief. Is that something you guys would be interested in? Mhhmmm, it was a thought. Anyways, THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR READING! PLEASE REVIEW AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!