Perhaps it was the world being ironic. Even as she was bleeding out she could almost appreciate the humor of the situation. Maid of Phantomhive, assassinated. Of course the public wouldn't know that she had been a feared assassin in her own right, well…if that were the case then, she would be just another body in the street. The joke would be lost on them.
Of course someone would realize she hadn't come back from her errands, "Oh where did that silly Mey Rin go? Isn't she back yet?"
Sebastian would have that look, even now as she bleeds out from the hit to her chest, she can see it. That was the face she saw the most, so it was most vivid, even through her glasses. It was annoyed but at least it was trying to be nice. She appreciated that. He could have always looked mad at her.
She's getting numb, she can appreciate the skill it took to get the drop on her, and land such a good hit. Such a simple thing, her brain is thinking, a cold calculating of her own condition and estimated time left. She's killed enough to get a rough idea, can't be sure, each body is different and it's hard to figure out how far the bullet went.
She'll be dead before she realizes it, should she pray? To whom?
The faceless God that she had never been taught to see?
Maybe, he is forgiving if the stories are true.
Or maybe one of Prince Soma's Gods, or Goddesses. Perhaps she could beg at the feet of a Goddess…what a wild thought. Definitely had never been taught how to do that.
No, her spirit, if she had one, was headed to whatever the universe had in waiting for her, prayers or pleas be damned. She tries to shift her sight, still able to see enough to realize her glasses are gone. She rolls her head to the side. Amongst the scattered groceries were her glasses.
She had lived so blind, she didn't want to die the same way.
Must have looked funny, a dying woman reaching for broken glasses. She didn't want to find it funny. She only felt human with her glasses.
A voice, she might have heard once maybe not, it didn't matter now anyway, it was speaking.
Aww but she was a pretty birdie
Now don't start that.
She was hearing voices. How many more would join in before this was over. God knows she could have many people waiting for her from the other side waiting to add their two cents to her pitiful situation.
One was smooth and one was rough, loud, 'hush now stop that bickering' she wanted to say…
It's the Earl's maid! Well, well, I wonder if Sebasie is going to show up!
Oh, Ah! So it is…Here you go.
Someone places her glasses on her face. Thankfully not too much more scratched then before. A jagged scratch in the center of the left lens but otherwise fine, it was calming. If she had the time she could have gone through a list for each crack or dent in her lenses, the moment they happened and why. She saw them. Red and black….her imagination must be running, they almost seemed familiar. The blond one especially but…
Hey now….the second, louder voice warned.
Hey, she just wants her eyes back, can't fault her for that.
She started to remember, her life flashing before her eyes. Unaware that the two death gods were watching. Her life laid bare for cold green eyes to judge.
Her earliest memory is of the orphanage. It was always too cold or too hot, too dry or too wet. There was no incentive to stay, some kids ran away. No one looked for them for very long or hard. Kids like her didn't need to be found.
For her whole life when it rained she had to fight the sadness that would strike. The week she was left at the orphanage was a down pour, one of the worst in years. The ladies remember her looking like a drowned rat, more than once complaining that she was the rubbish the rain brought in.
Her parents must have been poor, they didn't even have a name for her and the people would have nicknames for her. "Kitten" "Birdie" "Sweet Lamb" and when she ran into things or her sight caused problems "Idiot" "Fool", she could change her name on the hour if she wanted but nothing really fit. She wasn't alone, some didn't have names either but at least they picked something. She was the only one that never settled. Without a name you weren't really a person. You had nothing to grow into or away from.
She wasn't picked, by the few people looking for children. Couples would come, or sometimes groups of men looked over them like livestock but she didn't leave. She got older and older and she held the smaller children at night when they cried. But they came and went, some to never be seen again, some made it safe. She wasn't particularly desirable.
Her vision made it so working close up was hard; it was dangerous to work in the factories. She couldn't see the levers and buttons clear enough and the managers wouldn't wait for her to memorize them. She tried that for a while until the accident, a bobby spun off, hit her in the head. She found a local shop that needed deliveries done. She had the streets memorized from landmarks and she did that a long time until the shop went under. She tried to keep money coming, as long as she did, she was useful.
She played with the other children, wherever they could find the space and no one would throw rocks. They would play in the yard or the park. Somewhere he had seen her.
Taught her to use a gun in an hour. She went home with him an hour after that.
"Bird's Eye Betty" Well she could become Betty. Her education on the tools of distant death started at 13, and it was intense, she was perfect. She was a hard worker. Her praise was food, shelter and safety from the streets that ate up so many children.
She had so many assignments that they blurred. Tiny people, living tiny lives, tiny tiny tiny…
For this she had been born, she was told. Her vision meant for this task. She was told a lot. The blood never comes off, even if none of it actually touches you. But this was all she knew, her alternatives were running the street. So in this, she grew. Draw time improvements, the number of guns she learned neared dozens, the people she had to snuff out sporadic. But her high success rate kept the attention of all the right people, if such wrongness could be right.
She watched them, before her bullet would end them. The beautiful wives and daughters the adorable boys, the handsome husbands and the servants mixed in. Sometimes it was the wife, usually the husband. A message was delivered with the wives and an enemy was eliminated when it was the husband.
She would watch the children scream, the chaos. This was her design, her life and she had to do it. It was suffocating, though she hadn't been taught the value of life, somehow in the rotting landscape of her soul she had found it.
She was dying with guilt.
So when Sebastian showed up it had been a miracle. He was magnificent, in the light of the moon. She thinks anyway, he was close to her so he was blurry. But he was a magnificent blur. Dramatic, elegant, there to offer a life that she couldn't have reached otherwise.
When, for the first time, she had a roof over her head that didn't leak and wasn't drafty, she thought she had died. The mansion was large, Boss's place was smaller, but then again the dirty work he did needed some subtly.
This is when her life truly began. She had clothing, dresses! She had been told to only wear pants, if she had to run she wouldn't get far with a skirt and who knows what else holding her down. She hadn't needed to be a lady, only a tool of death. But now,
Now everything was new. She was new, She was Mey Rin. A maid who would, should her home and lord come under attack, revert back to what she had run from. Defend her new life with the sins of the old. But like the bear that protected her cub, it was the way nature and life demanded. For as long as they would have her, she would try to be this new person.
She had glasses, she could see. The details of the frames next to her, the eyelashes of the people standing too close these things were hers to have now. That first week she had walked around looking at things. Learning what everything looked like up close. To be able to examine the smudges of a fork! Such novelty!
Her new self was a maid, but…she was not terribly gifted in domestic things. Even at the orphanage there was a degree of accidents, guesses that turned out wrong. While she had a better average at the mansion, accidents happened. Especially at tasks that she hadn't memorized yet.
She knew Finian was getting reading lessons but they hadn't been extended to her, she stayed working. It wasn't until Bard needed her to find a recipe card that anyone even realized she couldn't read. And so the hand of mercy came again. Ciel wouldn't stand for his servants to be uneducated. His reasoning (it would look bad to the Phantomhive name) whether truly selfish or altruistic, she couldn't tell.
She learned to read, because someone had cared to teach her. She knew that she was clumsy but she could handle that, she just hadn't wanted to be seen as stupid. She worked hard; she made up for lost time. Poetry became her favorite to read. Late at night, when she couldn't sleep. And ghost stories. The world around her had felt so foreign for so long, she understood she probably couldn't even see it all now! The creeks in the mansion and faint thuds, she made a game to pretend it was the dead to visit. It was a game. She was never sure of a soul, and what it meant. They had taught her to read, to mix cleaning solutions, how to rub in waxes but somethings were never brought up.
Not religion.
But in those days she had her new life. Her chores, her friends.
Friends, she had them, first time in her life. Not associates of the Boss. She could get close, hand them things without worry. Even as her glasses would get dings and scratched she would persist.
The gift of Phantomhive was the gift of life.
And it wasn't soon until those friends became her family. The one she never had. She loved them. Some in different ways than others but she loved them.
Late night poker games, playing for pieces of silverware and bragging rights. Early morning talks and shared worries. Despite the blood she would shed for them, her new life was beautiful.
She had met some pretty wonderful people. Some would leave but still she remembers them, fondly. She was thankful for each small kindness. Seeing it all now she could say she was thankful for the frustrations and mistakes, because they were hers to fix and deal with.
She had woken up this morning, dressed and put on her old glasses. Cracked but still, she refused new ones almost as a talisman of protection.
She had thought the old life had been settled. She had been told as such. But it hadn't. And so as she was carrying a bag with a few last minute supplies for tonight she had been shot. She knew Boss and his skill at finding the talented and easy manipulated. Part of her wondered what took him so long to square up. She hadn't turned him in, but still she was a loose element. He waited well.
She had been living a nice life, she thought, sad to see it go. No, not sad, heartbroken. Just when things were getting good. She had plans. That someday she would perhaps confess her affections, or find that blond man from the dock, they could run off, or maybe she could start something with Bard...she could have been a wife. Like the wives of those husbands she had murdered.
In her final moments she could grasp at her dreams,
Of simply having never been her. No that's not right, she wishes she had never been nameless or Betty, that she had been born the maid. Into the life she had to leave now.
She was thankful to the people that made her feel like Mey Rin.
The reel ends.
Adopted name Mey Rin,
Birth name unknown, no documentation.
Born, approximately on 24th of November, 1867.
Cardiac Arrest on the 3rd of March, 1892.
Remarks…none.
…
Ronald closes the file on Mey Rin, after a moment's hesitation. The maid at the dock, he had briefly flirted with, huh, small world after all.
"Really though she had to remember me in that drab disguise!" Next to Ronald, Grell lets out a dramatic huff.
"She seemed to like you well enough though." Had worried about the suicidal Durless butler even. Fussed about the mistakes but worried none the less.
"Not as much as you, you sly fox you. Shame you never made good though, can't now…" Grell tsks and turns. It was a cased closed situation.
"Don't suppose we should tell 'em?" Ronald offers a last glance at the body on the ground.
"Not our job dear." Grell was already looking at the list, who was next.
"…ah, I suppose but I guess that'd mean ya wouldn't get to talk to-"
Grell closed the folder with enthusiasm, face contorting into a devilish grin.
"Well, I suppose we shouldn't just let them NOT know their lovely maid is gone. In an alley like this she might not be found for hours! Simply won't do for a lady to be left around like that, come Ronald let's go."
Ronald knew that would work, he watched as his elder practically skipped out the alley. He looks back at Mey Rin. She hadn't been so bad really, just not remarkable enough to earn an extension. Well, the least he could do was tell them were to find her, her family would want to know.
I wrote this before the chapter where Mey Rin got new glasses. Never thought I'd see that happen (no pun intended). Well, this was written from what I could remember from canon. I hope we learn more about the Phantomhive staff past. This is just a lot of personal ideas and thoughts that anyone is free to adopt or ignore. That said, I started writing this a while ago and then I found the absolutely amazing fanfiction "Jackrabbit" by mellish found here: archiveofourown works/140495 and I revised a few parts. I feel like I should mention it because A) it's an amazing piece and B) it did influence a few changes I made, while I didn't lift anything directly from Jackrabbit it still should be mentioned.
I did some research on bullet wounds into the chest but it got a little confusing and not mattering too much. As a victim of the wound I don't think Mey Rin would know exactly what's going on. If you are someone that knows a lot about this type of thing I hope you stuck through it. The cause of death was either going to be blood loss or cardiac arrest, I don't have enough medical training to decide with 100% accuracy.
Few tiny things:
Ronald didn't remember her, he flirts with a lot of people and he's got a full time job. It would be easy to forget one lady.
Relationships that are implied is, one sided Mey crush on Sebastian, one sided affection of Bard to Mey and fond remembering for Mey about Ronald.
The unofficial theme song for this piece is The Execution Ballet from the Tudors sound track for season three.