This will be silly.

A long time ago, I had created some fairy-tale retelling for fun for WotQ (none of them was ever written), and it was quite funny, so I reimagined more fairy-tales with other "Kuroshitsuji" characters. I started writing a few, one about Cinderella, one about Little Red Riding Hood, and one about The Frog King, but I didn't finish any of them and I thought that I wouldn't finish them, like, ever. But, right now, I am at a writing peak - I wrote more in the last days than in the last months -, therefore, I took out my notebook in which I write down many ideas and snippets - once, I even wrote an entire chapter in it! - and found my handwritten beginning of "The Frog Prince; or The Iron Agni" because writing silly stuff is what I do when being bored during free periods at school. I was quite surprised how long it actually was and spontaneously decided to finish it. And now, it is finished - and, well... why not uploading it then?

I hope you like this silly, little fairy-tale retelling! Enjoy reading it^^

Tale One:

The Frog Prince; or The Iron Agni

The Frog King; or The Iron Heinrich

When he loses something precious to him in a well, King Ciel encounters a very strange creature...

Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea lived a son of Royal blood with eyes like the depth of the ocean, black hair, shimmering silver, and a terrible personality well-hidden behind the walls of roses surrounding the palace he called home. And this boy, King Ciel of This Kingdom by the Sea, he lived with no other thought than to take revenge for what had been done to him – the murder of his beloved ones, the fire set in his home, the humiliation he had been forced through. He had only been a child when he made a contract with a demon, here in this kingdom by the sounding sea, whom he named "Sebastian Michaelis" after a love once lost, and appointed him as his butler until the lies became truth.

But this demon with the face of a butler and the eyes of a beast did not turn out like Ciel had wished he had as Sebastian found great love and joy in undermining his master's authority and position.

And thus, from time to time, it happened that Sebastian would deny his master his cake, resulting in the young king leaving the castle in apparent secrecy to get to his special place to which never a soul wandered.

Today was one of these days on which Sebastian brought the king into a state of aggravation and made him run into the forest to his private place. The place was not special because even the angels envied its beauty, but because there stood a well, long forgotten and embraced by roots and leaves; and in one of its stones, Ciel had once hidden a metal box, containing such a large amount of sweets that the lid could barely be closed.

But when King Ciel retrieved his box and sat down on the only part of the rim of the well, a tragedy occurred: While sitting down his clothes had brushed against the box which he had laid down earlier on the edge, and the box vanished into the blackness inside the well.

Horror washing over him, Ciel jumped down from the rim and peered down the well, but it was so deep that he could neither see the bottom nor his box. While Ciel was staring down the well, mourning the loss of his sweets and cursing Sebastian in all languages available to him, a frog suddenly put its head out of the water.

"I have witnessed all," the frog said, a creature not only peculiar because of his possession of the gift of tongues but also because of his colour of purple and gold, "and I want to help to retrieve it – but only for a price."

"I will gladly give my butler to you," Ciel said without hesitation.

"No, I do not want your butler," the frog replied.

"I will not share my sweets with you."

"I do not want your sweets either," the frog spoke. "All I want is that you love me, let me live with you, eat from off your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed."

Ciel, not half so happy about having to love a frog – what would Elizabeth, his fiancée, think if he left her for an amphibian? –, and sharing food and bed with it, agreed to the creature's conditions but crossed his fingers behind his back.

The frog, overjoyed of the answer and oblivious to Ciel's scheme, dived into the well and after a few minutes had passed he came back with the metal box. As soon as the frog put it on the well's rim, Ciel took it and quickly ran away.

The following day when Ciel was dining with his beautiful fiancée, Princess Elizabeth of the Midlands, who had spontaneously visited him today as she often would do, there was a knock on the door, and a little voice cried out: "Open the door, my prince dear! Open the door to thy dear friend here! For you have forgotten me by the well and I had to wander here all alone."

Forgotten? It must truly be an idiot to think I have simply forgotten him, Ciel thought and gestured Sebastian to stand by his side.

"There is a frog at the door," he whispered to his butler. "Exterminate him before Elizabeth catches his voice."

But his dear and lovely fiancée had already heard the sad words from behind the door, and said, "Ciel, did you not hear? There is a tapping at the door."

Ciel gazed at Sebastian and saw the demon's eyes glow red in amusement. Annoyed at the turn of events, Ciel ordered him to open the door, and the frog hopped into the room.

"A frog!" Elizabeth exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. "And even such a cute one! Say, Ciel, when did you befriend a frog?"

"He is not my friend," Ciel replied, cursing her mother, his aunt, the late King's sister Francis, as her daughter had apparently inherited her hearing from her.

"But why did he claim to be your friend, then?"

"I am his friend!" the frog spoke to the surprise of all. "I helped him getting back something he held dear to his heart, and as gratitude, he invited me to his home – we are friends in the truest of sense."

He is an idiot, Ciel thought, and Elizabeth said, "Ciel, how could you forget your dear friend in the woods? How could you not introduce him to me?" She turned to the frog who had jumped onto the table. "Hello. I am Elizabeth, but you can call me 'Lizzy' if it feels more to your liking. And what is your name?"

"My name is Soma!" the frog happily replied. "And Ciel promised me that I could live with him, eat from his golden plate, and sleep upon his bed."

Ciel glared at Soma, and Elizabeth turned to her fiancé. "Ciel, as you have given your word you must keep it; it was not right to leave him in the woods, breaking the pledges you have given to him. You are a King and a King not keeping his word is not a good one – unless times have come which make it impossible to keep them, then it is justified. But this is not one of such times – and now, stay by your words and do what you have promised to Soma."

Disgusted, Ciel turned to Soma who beamed at him still. "I beg your pardon, but you may have seen that our plates are silver, not golden."

"It will still do its deed," the frog said, "so put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it." And scowling, Ciel did as he said, and Soma ate from his plate, and Ciel touched none of it.

When dinner was over, Soma said, "Now I am tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed."

Ciel hesitated to move, wanted to order Sebastian to do so, but with Elizabeth in the room; he could not do so. So, very unwilling, he took Soma in his hand and carried him upstairs, and Elizabeth wished them a good rest's sleep. And on his way to his chambers, Ciel could hear his butler's muffled chuckles.

In his bedroom, Ciel took a pillow of his bed and put Soma upon it, placing the pillow and him in a corner. And as Ciel was lying his bed, sleeping well and comfortable, Soma was not happy at all as this had not been what he had desired.

"I am tired, and I want to sleep as well as you do," Soma said into the dark of the room, waiting up Ciel. "Pick me up, pick me up – this wasn't what you have promised! I am afraid of the dark."

And for hours and hours, the frog's desperate cries filled the room until Ciel had enough and stood up. Soma's eyes shone when he picked him up, but then, Ciel said, "Now you will have your peace, you disgusting frog!" and threw him against a wall, full of anger, full of annoyance.

But when Soma fell down, he was not a frog anymore, but a prince with golden eyes and purple hair.

Am I dreaming? Ciel asked himself wishfully, blinking at the scene in front of him. Was all I had seen and heard today nothing more but a bad dream?

"Ciel!" Soma cried, proving him wrong, and embracing him tightly. "I thank you, my dearest friend! I was enchanted by a spiteful fairy and changed into a frog! You have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for but that I will stay with you in your Kingdom by the Sea where I will be your friend for as long as you live," he said. In this very moment, Ciel wished for his contract to end like he had never wished for something before, for Sebastian to contain his soul and save him from Soma's wish.

The next morning, at breakfast, Soma told his story to Elizabeth who was proud at Ciel for helping his friend in need when, suddenly, Sebastian arrived with the words "A carriage, drawn by eight horses, has pulled up."

"What is happening?" Ciel demanded to know, and Soma jumped to the window and said, "White ostrich feather! Chains of gold! It is my faithful butler Agni!" And all four – Soma overjoyed, Elizabeth curious, Ciel annoyed, and Sebastian amused by all – went out to the courtyard to see a man with iron bands around his body.

"My prince!" he cried out in joy when his gaze met Soma's. "After your transformation into a frog and sudden disappearance, I feared that my heart could burst in grief and sorrow – and for this reason, I placed three iron bands around my heart to keep it inside my chest. But now, all grief and sorrow are gone for you have returned to me in flesh and bone."

Soma ran across the courtyard to reunite with his faithful servant, and Ciel wondered if the haunting was now over. Suddenly, Agni approached Ciel and bowed in front of him. "You have saved my prince, His Royal Highness Prince Soma Asman Kadar of Bengal, and no word in the world can capture my gratitude."

"You do not need to thank me," Ciel replied. "Just go back to from wherever you have come."

"But it is against my wish!" Soma interfered. "Do you not remember? I wished to stay here forever to be your friend for all times to come."

"Oh, this means we will see each other more often now?" Elizabeth said enthusiastically.

"Of course! My friend Ciel is not someone who does not keep his word!" he said, proudly. "He only has a liking to say words in jokes, little sister Lizzy!"

"'Little sister'?"

"Ciel is so dear to me that I consider him my brother!"

Can something please save me from them? Ciel wished in silence when he heard a crack, thinking that his plea had been heard and the ground was cracking open, swallowing both Soma and his butler.

"Agni, are you hearing this?" Soma asked. "The carriage seems to be breaking apart."

And what Agni answered with a smile on his face was what Ciel wished not to have heard.

"No, my lord, the carriage it's not, but one of the bands surrounding my heart that suffered such great pain, when you were sitting in the well, when you were a frog."

Once again, the cracking sound could be heard, but it did not come from the ground – it came from the bands springing from faithful Agni's heart because his master was now redeemed and happy.

I really have to take my revenge faster, Ciel told himself – happy voices and a demon's chuckle sounding through This Kingdom by the Sea.

The first part was inspired by, well, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe because I simply love this poem! (And once wrote an entire one-shot just about it! It is called My Lenore and is also inspired by "Snow White" and "The Raven.")

Some sentences (mostly what some characters said) were taken from "The Frog King" from "The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grimms' Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm" and from this website: www . pitt . edu/~ dash / grimm001 . html

More fairy-tale retellings will come whenever I have time! :D
I have quite a list up my sleeve (like the aforementioned "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Cinderella" retellings) - but I will also consider suggestions! (Can be for fairy-tales and characters.)