He attacks her with ferocity unbecoming of either propriety or dignity. But here, against a mirage of virtue, she is not the Lady Elizabeth he has come to associate himself with.
Her swords are unflinchingly precise but her actions, guided by desperation and sorrow, hinder her true capabilities. She has always been a lady of agility and strength though now, the demon senses something changed—something not quite…feasible in a girl of her stature.
"Lady Elizabeth." He purrs, voice smooth as satin. "Put down your sword and let us speak with diplomacy."
Tears blur her eyes and the stunning jade mists over, like fog on the Yalu River.
He cannot abide the sight of tears.
She has never appeared so weak or frail and the very thought disgusts Sebastian because this girl, this pitiful, frail girl, is not the same one who proclaimed herself the wife of the Queen's Watchdog. She is hiding something—a precious truth locked away in the depths of her heart—and while duplicity and manipulation seasons the earl's soul to perfection, it only blackens and ruins the purity of Lady Elizabeth's.
This golden haired fae of grace and ebullience is not meant for the unsightly inner workings of the criminal underground.
He dodges her balestra lunge, pivoting left while her silver sharp blade etches itself in a pillar of veined marble.
For a minute in time she is held there, and he takes the moment to approach her. Dressed in white lace, with her skin rosy pale against the daffodil sunlight, she looks a drowned angel and it amuses some depraved part of Sebastian's demonic essence. "Lady Elizabeth—" he begins but the words are cut short when she spins like a hurricane and pounces on him, the cold steel of her saber just missing his right cheekbone.
He lands in an elegant crouch, entertained but surprised. In that moment, her strength seemed almost…inhuman.
"My, my." He chuckles, watching as the tears fall from her eyes with greater urgency—as if she were not in control of her movements; a beautiful marionette doll controlled by some greater force. "Are you unwell, my lady? You always want to see the young master smiling. What brings you to do this?"
The words, softly spoken with an undertone that's almost vicious, pierces through the lady's fragile armor and she clenches her swords with renewed strength.
"You…dare ask why?" Gone is the sweet honey-prose that has always coated her tone; the innate gentility—the kindness of spirit—has vanished.
And in that one brief breath, before her swords lunge at him once more, Sebastian resolves that this here is not the Lady Elizabeth he knows.
This is not the girl he kneeled before, so many months ago.
So he attacks.
The demon in him revels at her fall from grace, tumbling from her high perch of ambrosia and nectar to join her fiancé below, in the murky depths of humanity. Yet the only thing that keeps him from abandoning her where she lay is the faint, candle-like flame that burns in her heart still.
She has been tarnished, but not ruined.
And that, he decides, is almost poetic grace.
- Balestra (fencing move): a footwork preparation, consisting of jumping forward and usually accompanied by a lunge.
A/N: I know that demons have no regard for humans (outside their contracts, of course) but some childish part of me really wants to see Seb hold some respect for Lizzy. (Because I love this precious sunshine angel and want to see her safe and happy.)