They meet again at the Phantomhive estate, this time as subordinates to adults trapped in the bodies of children. He, standing so casually in the garden as though he belongs there in the middle of the night, and she, sitting on the patio with equal poise, a pocket watch glittering in her hands. The butler sweeps closer, a smirk already playing at his lips when she flinches at his approach. She's too tired to play this game any more.
"It's a shame," he says smoothly, "To see you tied down and reduced to a lowly servant."
"You are one to speak," she says, words heavily accented and slow, carefully articulated in a tongue that she is not wholly comfortable with, "Dog of Phantomhive and Scotland Yard."
"Ah, yes." Sebastian is never out of his element. Despite not having his master to attend to and nothing to busy himself, he stands perfectly erect, hands folded behind his back and graciously allowing Sakuya several feet of space. He is wise enough to know that she will flee when cornered. "But how interesting it is to be a dog."
"I suppose, when you try something that you are not accustomed to, it is very interesting," the maid agrees, fingers rubbing along the intricate pattern engraved on the watch. Sebastian glances at it pointedly and she manages a tired smile. "Do you remember this? It is how I can compete with your perfection."
"The Lunar Dial," he says with a nod, "Last we met, you were complaining of how difficult it was to operate."
"It is not becoming for a maid of Scarlet to give up."
"Oh?"
"I say it in jest. Truthfully, I am the only competent help in the mansion." Her smile broadens. "But perhaps you understand this as well."
"Only too well." The lighthearted air between them becomes clouded with Sebastian's troubled expression. "Have you ever felt trapped by that frail, human body?"
"Trapped?"
"By the whims of fate," Sebastian says, "Knowing that you will not live as long as your mistress and companions, knowing that your time is so very limited and your life will be over in the blink of a demon's eye, do you ever curse that you were born in such a body?"
Sakuya is silent for a long time, gazing down at her pocket watch as if for an answer. Sebastian catches the faintest hint of a smile on her lips-a real smile, not unlike what he'd been met with so many years ago when she was young and naive. "Never," she says, "Not even once."
It is people like her that Sebastian despises most, for they remain untouched by the world and its cruelty, holding onto a pure happiness that he has never quite understood but has always wanted. More than pity, he envies Sakuya, who has come to terms with her mortality and embraced it with her entire being. These are the ones, he knows, that he can never corrupt. They would never let him.
"It is late," he tells her, "You should rest."
"Or my frail, human body will be unable to function," she finishes his thought with a wistful smile, "How thoughtful, Michaelis-san. I will do just that." The light of the moon bounces off her hair as she stands from the table, and Sebastian finds himself thinking again, like every time they meet, of a way to talk her into a contract. Surely, she will outlive the overly-ambitious and vengeful Ciel, and he will still have a chance to have a piece of her soul-and that happiness-for himself.
But she is gone before he can think of something, slipping away like the night wind into the mansion and the world of mortal dreams, a world that Sebastian must accept that he will never know.