She is my morning star and—you shall not touch her.
The Earl of Phantomhive declared this statement with vehement passion—a desperate, chilling severity which unmasked his fury for all to see. In the shadows, Sebastian watched as the murderer—hands stained red and soiled clothes filthy—clutch Lady Elizabeth to him, ruining her beautiful pale pink gown.
Without even having to look, the butler felt nothing but hatred, pure and simple, emitting from his lord's tense form—how his master must have longed to cut open the vagrant's throat himself. But Elizabeth. The lady was being used as a common shield by the criminal though Sebastian could not understand why Ciel didn't simply order him to kill the man. It would be easy enough and they could be on their way.
What was he stalling for?
"Get back!" The man bellowed in a thick Cockney accent, waving his blunt knife in front of Elizabeth's unconscious form—as if that would intimidate the Queen's Watchdog. "I'll gut her, I will! You come one step closer laddie and I'll gut her open! Splay her pretty insides all over ye! Get back, get back! Run along to yer hive or else I'll get her!"
Sebastian was disgusted. This was the desperate, pathetic stench of humanity he'd grown accustomed to during his long life. Squalid and depraved, using the poorest of tactics to try and reach nirvana when in reality, all that awaited them was purgatory and hell's fire. Even the man's soul was tainted—flimsy and fleshy and pitifully thin. It wouldn't satisfy the hunger of any demon and, in truth, made Sebastian's refined palate recoil with distaste.
This is no way to treat a lady.
He glanced down at his lord and master—his leash and commander—and awaited the order.
It felt as if an icy hand had seized Ciel by the throat, gripping him until his lungs blackened and his voice died. It was with choked, genuine terror that he watched Gerald "Jerry" Holback seize Elizabeth from the crowd, carrying her silk and damask skirts into a deserted alleyway. Londoners didn't particularly care whether or not another victim died, so long as they weren't related to them.
But the fool had done this in the presence of the Queen's Watchdog—on the rare occasion that Ciel had come to London for business.
He had seen Elizabeth—bright, beautiful Elizabeth—taken.
For a full minute, his world blurred and he could feel time slowing down—as if moving through winter molasses. Sluggish, hard pressed, and faint. His heart pounded in his chest, his palms broke out in a cold sweat, and his breaths fell short and shallow—sipping air and grime and fear. Frantically, he turned his head back to gauge Sebastian's reaction and the sharp vermillion stare of his butler only confirmed what Ciel had seen.
Someone had kidnapped Elizabeth.
Someone had tried to kidnap Elizabeth.
Without even a word of warning, Ciel dashed out from the carriage and ran blindly through the crowd, not caring how undignified he looked as he raced passed moving bodies and patches of frozen snow. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.
She couldn't be gone, she couldn't be taken—no one, NO ONE, was allowed to touch her. She was pure and good and—as Ciel ran and shoved, knocking aside bystanders in his attempt to part this Baltic Sea—his mind zeroed in on one subject, one particular image he couldn't shake.
It was frivolous and unimportant yet—it meant the world to Ciel in that one moment.
Elizabeth, standing outside under the warm April sun, dressed in her Easter regalia of orange silk and creme fraîche lace, cradling a bright teal and pink egg in her hands. She was laughing, her nose scrunched up ever so slightly, her emerald eyes filled with mirth and good cheer. Come Ciel! She seemed to say, voice clear and sweet and vivid.
I can't lose her. I won't lose her. Not Elizabeth—not Lizzy.
These men—these vile, repulsive men of animalized instinct—belonged to the underworld. To him, the faces of these murderers, rapists, adulterers, terrorists were the blind, masked cultists who had forced him onto that marble alter. Who had tortured him without a second thought, stripping him of his innocence and redemption—for the devil took no dues.
Instead, it was the torturous, tar pitched wails of a ten year old child these licentious votaries yearned for—how they desired blood to bleed from Ciel's throat, how they wanted jagged, raw flesh and something so hideously crude that not even Gabriel would dare approach the sinner's child. They put him on that alter to die—to cut and bruise and take with him the beastly sentiment of man.
An abrogation of his soul was desired. An annihilation of his spirit. Their mouths jeered and their tongues wagged, calling and screaming for the appearance of Mephistopheles. They thirsted and starved for hellish fortune, desiring the generosity of the devil.
But Ciel gave them Sebastian's grace—he gave it to them tenfold. Each face he killed on the queen's command was another animal sent to hell; another castigation in memory of all that he'd lost. He would soak his body in sin and death if a reprieve could be found. Ciel was now a sable shadow, drinking from the poisoned cup of Ananke, waiting for Thanatos to swallow him whole.
As for Tartarus and all of hell—they could beat him, break him, hurt him, kill him.
He could endure it. He would take it. Loathing and malice burned too deep in his heart to be quenched; the impure venom of every miscreant coursed through his veins. He would gladly drown in the hatred of Styx if it meant desistance at long last.
Ciel swallowed, throat tight and heart anguished.
But…Lizzy.
She was strong and beautiful and…so full of light.
In these last few seconds before he entered the alleyway, as he ran and pushed through an apathetic crowd, he felt something strange bubbling up inside him. A hot, endemic pyre.
For the first time since the inferno, Ciel silently prayed to a god he no longer believed in. Prayed for him to have mercy…spare Lizzy, please—spirit, saint, god. Please. I beg of you. Don't let him touch her.
The sins of the world now fell on him and he would gladly play Atlas. Yet even Judas had a heart and, somewhere, in his pitch black soul, Ciel offered up the salvation he no longer had a right to—asking, demanding, pleading: please, for the love of god, I beg you—don't let him touch her.
"Sebastian—this is an order: cut open the throat of Gerald Holback, leave his body mangled and broken and so disfigured no one will be able to recognize it."
His butler bowed. "Yes, my lord."
Without another word, Sebastian lunged; Zephyr blew and Hermes was at his heel. With one swipe of the hand, Holback's blade fell and the demon seized him by the throat, quickly and without difference. Elizabeth's own body dropped down but, with a speed Sebastian did not think his lord possessed, Ciel sprang forward and caught her in his arms, knees scraping the dirtied pavement as he held her close.
Lizzy.
He took in her sunshine lemon scent. You're safe.
When Elizabeth Midford next awoke, she saw Ciel Phantomhive—the aristocrat of evil, the villainous noble, the Queen's Watchdog—seated beside her bed, cheek pressed against the blue silk duvet and right hand clutching her own.
A/N: This was my version of Ciel's revelation as to how important Elizabeth is to him. Even though he's designated for an early death/loss of his soul, Lizzy is this one shining pinnacle he can look up to. His morning star, his promised dawn.
(Basically written because I'm v worried about Lizzy in this new arc.)
- Gabriel: refers to Saint Gabriel, a messenger angel sent down to earth by god. He is remembered for having foretold the birth of Jesus to Mary.
- Mephistopheles: the demon who made a deal with Heinrich Faust that if he could give Faust one moment of perfect, uninterrupted satisfaction then Faust would give up his soul and serve the devil in hell.
- Ananke: the goddess of inevitability and wife of Chronos, the Greek god of time.
- Thanatos: the Greek god of death. (As in, it's physical manifestation.)
- Tartarus: in essence, a dungeon of torment and suffering for sinners in the Greek underworld.
- Styx: a river that is the boundary between earth and the Greek underworld. It is also a river of hate and detestation; ferried by Charon.
- "For the first time since the inferno..." I'm referencing Dante's Inferno and his nine rings of hell. (Not the actual Phantomhive fire.)
- Atlas: the Greek god who was forced by Zeus to carry the world on his back.
- Zephyr: refers to the Greek god Zephyrus who commands the west wind.
So...yay? Nay? Eh...it's okay?