Author: Cyhirae
Notes: Kuroshitsuji, like so many other things I write fanfics for, is not mine. If it were, this would not be a fanfic. Logic! With that out of the way, this fic is an AU, and is about Drocell Keinz (also known as Drossel Cains and various other translations no one's yet agreed on. I'll fix it if/when it ever gets officially translated) and how he came to be the way he is. It is intended only as a one shot. Powers above know I already have enough multichaptered fics I keep taking forever to get back to.
Some spoilers here, though I figure them for mild; if you know who Drocell is, then you probably already know all about him. Still, if not- best to stop here if you don't want spoilers.
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Life had been good once; it had been full of cheering crowds and laughing people walking between the tents of the circus while he played his organ. A little monkey had danced for their delight to the tune and people had thrown money to augment the pay the circus gave. It had been a good life; it had not been an easy one, but it had been a good one.
It had certainly come as a shock the day the big top came down for the last time. There hadn't been any warning, no chances to make preparations or plans. He, like so many others, had gone to the grounds to find the tents being taken down and auctioned off, the animals already gone to the zoo or collected by debtors to be sold elsewhere. Just like that, the good life was over, lost to someone else's poor sense of finance.
Thus it had been out into the cold, colorless world they had all been thrown; clowns, performers and misfits, people who had never had a place in normal society. Normal society certainly hadn't been willing to give them a second chance.
Looks that had once earned him the delight of the people passing through the tents now turned them away as he sought some work; he was too strange with that bright hair and pale skin; the tattoo beneath his eye only accented the strangeness, even when he took pains to avoid any of the make up he had worn among his fellow performers. Like so many others, Drocell found himself on London's streets, hungry and cold as winter's hand began to creep across the city from the harbor.
The monkey had not lasted long; he almost wished he had let them claim it as part of the circus' belongings. Surely it would have at least found a better grave than a dustbin. But he had kept it, thinking they would find a way. He would play his organ in the streets as he had among the tents if no one would take him on as a laborer. How different could it be?
Far more different than he'd ever thought, it seems. And now, like the long laid to rest monkey, his hands were growing thin and weak upon the organ's crank. It was all he had left, however, as he huddled within the alley's confines; his once brilliant blue coat was little more than drab rags, the feathered top hat barely keeping any sort of shape. Even the hue of his brilliant orange mane had since fallen to the colorless gloom of London; only his eyes kept their vivid color, though their brilliance was as much from the onset of fever from this viciously cold weather as anything.
Only the organ remained the same, grinding out the nursery song that so many children had cheered him for among the tents.
"..London bridge...is falling down....falling down...." His voice was thin and weak, easily drowned out by his own instrument. He fell silent with a rueful smile and continued to turn the crank; at least he still had this. No one had deemed it worth enough to take away from him. Still, the crank gradually turned more slowly as his strength began to fade. He leaned his head against the alley wall, staring down at the open street beyond.
Something peculiar caught his eye then; a figure, far too small to be even a child, danced at the open mouth of the alley. It mimed the dancing game of London Bridge, prancing through the muddied snow. Fascinated, Drocell kept his eyes on the little toy, only dimly aware that a figure stood beyond it, tugging the strings to make it leap and spin so.
The toy did not stop until his hand could no longer turn the crank; then it dashed all but impossibly fast down the alley toward him, leaping up to stand on the organ and stare up at him. A puppet shouldn't be able to do that, should it? Perhaps his fever had finally taken him into madness before it let him die. The thought brought a smile to Drocell's lips; at least he would be seeing something bright and colorful again before then, even if it was something conjured by his own mind.
"My, it seems to have taken a liking to you." A cane came up under his chin then, forcing Drocell to look up from the colorful little doll. The man above it was as bland and colorless as the rest of London, however. Drocell could not focus on any part of him, only let his chin slide free of the cane to watch the puppet once again. "Lovely, for a homeless boy. And just as taken with my little friend as it is with you, I see."
As if to confirm his word, the doll had clambered down to one of Drocell's hands, tugging the tattered and dry rotted glove aside impatiently. Such a magnificent little toy to be so well manipulated...though even so close as this he could not see the strings. The puppet's head abruptly popped open at the mouth, managing a slight start from Drocell for the suddenness of it, and reached into the hollow to pull forth a ring with a brilliant blue stone it worked onto one of the young man's fingers.
"Hm...If you insist, though I do not quite agree." The doll proceeded to run around Drocell then, the young organ player barely able to keep track of it as it zipped about. Colorful little thing indeed..not so unlike himself, really, with that vibrant mop of pumpkin orange hair beneath its little top hat and amethyst eyes rimmed with paint. "Very well, very well; calm down. We will use him. Come along then-what is your name?"
Drocell tilted his head slightly, looking up to the man again as the doll scrambled up his cane to rest on his shoulder. It was a struggle to find his voice again, let alone to part his lips to speak.
"Drocell....Keinz.." Just saying the name seemed to drain him. The man nodded slightly then and looked to the doll on his shoulder.
"So what would you have me do with this one then?" The man must be a master ventriloquist as well; Drocell didn't see his lips move at all, but the doll abruptly teetered about on his shoulder, waving its hands around as it spoke.
"Butler; let him work in the house to help the young ladies! Show him how it is done so he may help!" The man nodded then, eyes returning to the figure all but half sprawled by the organ.
"Well then, Drocell Keinz. Come." The man started to walk away then, back turned to the dying figure of the young performer. "I am Duke Mandalay; once you are...properly prepared, you will serve me in my home." He paused on realizing there was no sound of footsteps following, then sighed and set the doll down into the alley again. "...You wanted him. Bring him along."
The doll promptly darted down toward Drocell again, this time taking a seat upon his shoulder. It spread its small, gloved hands out...and Drocell found himself rising, albeit clumsily, even as his body screamed at him that it had no strength to do this. He leaned forward to take up his organ again, motions jerky and clumsy; as if it were he on strings instead of the doll that rode his shoulder.
Where were its strings? Had he ever actually seen any? He could not tell through the fever haze. His dying body cried out against every movement he was guided through, falling into step behind the self-proclaimed Duke. By the time the man finally turned off the street and into a shop, Drocell was finding breath a rare commodity through the pain.
When they reached the manse beyond, the only reason for consciousness he could fathom at all was this being a fever dream. Or perhaps he had already died and was on his way to the Hell so many priests and preachers claimed awaited the circus folk at their demise.
Blessed release from the pain and movement came as he laid himself down upon a table in a rather bare room. The little doll lept from his shoulder then, standing aside as the Duke shed gloves and coat, hand coming up against his face; the flesh had gone from feverishly hot to a damp chill now. He nodded slightly as he rested his hand lightly over the young man's eyes, then smiled.
"Let us begin the process then. You will learn it yourself when this is done; for now, merely endure."
And then it all slipped away; pain and sensation...heartbeat, breath...it was all slipping away with his life though somehow, it was still there. Some distant part of him cried out against it, but soon silenced as he slipped away from the world entirely, feeling strings binding more tightly than they ever did upon a doll's frail body.
Some time later, Duke Mandalay left the room, satisfied. The doll that rose up from the table was one befitting the person it once had been; stuffed with sawdust and straw, the refuse of the circus yard, with cheap wood and gaudy paint to match the garb. But he would suffice, the little doll chattering on his shoulder made that plain. It had watched this one be steadily ignored by all of London; just another out of work circus performer no one cared to notice. He could collect the truly beautiful creatures that deserved the finest of his materials and no one would take note of him.
"Are you grateful to me for saving you, Drocell?" The puppet knelt before him, head leaning forward with an audible click of wood against wood.
"I reason that I am; I would not exist now if you had not." Soft, pleasant voice; such a pity it had been wasted on something as trite as a circus clown. The Duke shrugged then and settled himself into his chair, smiling.
"Then prove your gratitude; seek those I have sent the Shard of Hope. When this world ends, they will be all that remains, immortalized in wax and clay, iron and steel, silver and gold...Heheh."
"Yes, my master." The performer-become-puppet rose with a quiet clicking of wooden joints and pulled the doors shut behind him as he turned to go. He would never fail his master after the kindness shown to him. Never. As he walked down the stairs, the thin strains of song followed him as he descended.
"Build it up of wood and clay, wood and clay, wood and clay. Build it up of wood and clay, my fair lady~!"
~FIN~