~HIS BUTLER HAGGARD BEFORE THE GUESTS COME
Sebastian stands behind his master, Ciel, a big smile painted on his lips. For it wasn't often that the Phantomhive mansion gets guests, and all the servants were anxious to meet them. So they awaited their new guests, who were coming for business purposes and a petit vacation at the end of the month.
Ciel's one teddy-bear like eye squints at the black dot strolling towards them in the distance. He notices a galloping horse happily pulling a carriage behind him. Ciel braces himself for what might come and takes in a deep breath, then speaks to his butler.
"Sebastian, you did a background check, give me your summary."
"Of course, young master." The butler leans in to have his mouth right next to the boy's ear to whisper the information so the servants behind them won't hear. "Mr. Allen Bradford, a man in his young twenties with a fortune under his belt. He is one like you, master Ciel, except for the fact that he is rotten and spoiled and much less mature than you. His father died just a while ago and he was the one who pampered him after his mother died. Mr. Bradford was given nothing less than the best. So the man was left with the successful Bradford Food Company in his hands. It is the monopoly of today and thus why he is coming to speak to you."
"That doesn't make sense." Ciel whispers back to him.
"Our company, Funtom Co., was a random appearance in the food world. A monopoly such as Bradford Food would be outraged by it. Wouldn't you suppose so, young master?"
Ciel shrugs, "I suppose. So tell me about the servants. Are they anything close to mine?"
Sebastian's smile widens even further from the stupidity of the question.
"Of course not! We are a one and only mansion! But he has two servants; one male in his upper teens named Lou Willington and a maid, who is turning twenty in a week, but the strange thing about her is that she doesn't have a name. I shall start with the landscaper first: He is successful, and makes more money being a servant than running the family business. Mr. Bradford pays him much more as a servant than he would ever be paid in a perfect work day. His family business was apparently the best in Europe, but out of greed, it was stopped.
"The maid, on the other hand, has no fortunes what so ever. She grew up with no parents and lived on the streets. Her mother had given her away to an orphanage at age five after having another child. Of course, being who she was, she constantly escaped the orphanage to go find her mother and just stayed on the streets after a while. She is probably tough from this, but I could very possibly be wrong."
Ciel nods his head, his brain soaking in as much information as he could about the people.
"Maybe I can get Lou to do the landscaping before Finny gets a hold of destroying the yard again."
Sebastian nods his head and stands straight up with his hands neatly together behind his back. The two stare out at the carriage together as it turns a tiny corner and down the dirt road.
There was suddenly a yell of help, a woman drowning in her own tears.
Ciel runs off the steps ready for action and turns back for Sebastian.
"Go stop that carriage and settle the issue now!" His arm whips out to the side and leads toward the nearing transportation.
Sebastian bows with an even larger smile, this day couldn't get any better for him. "Understood, master." He hands over the boy's cane and sprints away towards the carriage, nothing visible except for the trailing dust cloud behind his fast feet. He jumps into a nearby tree and continues to hop from treetop to treetop until the carriage was closer than necessary. The screams of pain got louder.
The demon butler takes his time and hops on top of the carriage roof with ease. His feet slip to the edge and slide off to elegantly perch himself on the steps leading to the closed door. His white gloves grip the top of the carriage. His red eyes look through the circular window of the weak door. There sat a young woman on the floor with her head down and a young man brightly smiling with a whip aloft in his hands. He is dressed very proper and his fingers glitter in the dim light, being decked out with jewels. Then there is a man sitting in the seat behind him, resting his head on the wall and falling asleep. He's clearly a servant with his violet barrette lounging on his yellow, raggedy hair and plaid shorts to match his hat and purple vest.
The girl on the floor was sobbing, waterfalls streaming down her perfect skin. She was holding her hand that was covered by a gauntlet, but was dripping with blood as she held it with her other, delicate hand. Her eyes are eaten by dark shadows cast down from her chocolate milk hair. Her fluffy bangs in the front completely covers one side and travels to her wavy, everlasting hair in the back. Her blue dress is drenched with blood and is saturated to the point where it can't soak in more. The ruby liquid runs down her dress to erode a stream to the floor.
The man yells down to the beaten lady with a hint of triumph in his voice.
"Where's your knight in shining armor? Your sweet Romeo? You have nothing ahead of you!" He laughs with pure joy, a sneer plastered on his face. "Answer me, whore!"
She just continues to cry, trying to calm herself down and think of a better place. The sad thing is that she hasn't been to any happy places before, so it was hard to imagine one.
Sebastian finally decides to intrude on the situation and knocks on the door with a smile.
It was an odd thing for them to hear, a knock on a moving carriage-door. How ridiculous! A person knocking on the door? But the young man looked over, and his face was priceless to Sebastian.
He steps into the carriage like it's everyday business and stands in between the girl and the man. "I may be her knight to save her, but it is her decision if I am her Romeo."
He takes the whip from the dumbfounded man and sits on the ground facing the young lady, her puffy dress pressed up against his knees. Blood eroded away at a wrinkle in her blue dress until it gave out and flooded out onto the floor.
Sebastian's smile is cleaned off his face harshly as he sees how bad this event really was.
"Oh my," he said in a soft tone. He tries to comfort the young, crying woman. "Everything will be alright."
She finally looks up at the kind butler; her eyes are bloodshot from her constant crying and they are large and teddy-bear like. Her fluffy bangs are parted so that it covered the left eye, but the right one is like an oceanic blue. An ocean that once was thriving with sea creatures and coral reefs, but now it is so polluted and abused that not even a single plankton could live there, for it hurt that much to breath when the waters were filled with sorrows and not oxygen.
Sebastian manages to feign a friendly smile and delicately took her injured hand in his. It almost looked awkward because his hand was so much bigger and firmer than her fragile, smaller hand.
"Let me take a quick look."
He slides off her blood-drenched gauntlet as gently as possible so not to injure her dainty bones. He held her hand for the inspection: it was all red and already stained his white gloves to a bright red. There was a large gouge in the middle of her palm like a hunk of flesh was torn off and fed to the hounds.
"Oh my! I shall mend to this wound immediately!" The butler stands back up with the injured maid cradled in his long arms. As he turned to go back to the door, he fit in a stern glare at the fancied young man before he hopped back out of the carriage.
The person melts into a puddle of embarrassment and sat back down in the chair behind him and sat next to his servant.
Sebastian blasts down the dirt path and returned to the Phantomhive mansion.
The servant wakes up and notices that the door to the carriage was wide open. He frantically gets up and closes the door. "Master! Master! The door!"
Sebastian hops out of the last tree and nonchalantly walks up to his master's side with a stunned woman in his arms. She quivers and holds his jacket tightly in the fear of falling. She quietly cries into his chest and her grip on his shirt doesn't loosen. Her blood soaks into his black jacket to make it appear even darker than it already was.
Ciel looks at her injured hand with all seriousness.
"What happened to her?"
"She was whipped and beaten, young master." Sebastian said with a slight bow. "I will leave it the other servants to bandage her hand."
"I want you to check for another other cuts or injuries also. If she is always abused like this, there has to be something else."
"Understood." He turns to the door and yells for the other servants. "Finnian! Mey-Rin! Bardroy!"
Feet slip across the freshly waxed floor and hurriedly come towards the door. They stand there, ready for anything Sebastian will throw at them. They all salute.
"Yes sir!"
Mey-Rin accidentally knocks Bardroy's cigarette out of his mouth and apologizes a million times. She picks it up and shoves it back in his mouth.
Sebastian sighs, they are already giving him a headache and the guests aren't even here yet. As usual, what is he ever going to do with these useless idiots?
"I have an assignment for all of you." He said with an unenthusiastic voice. "You must bandage any wounds you see on this maid, simple enough?"
Their eyes sparkle with excitement, the first duty of the day came about so early! They take a glance at the bloody mess caking Sebastian's coat.
The butler hands Finnian the bleeding woman and tells him to be extremely careful with her. He turns back to his master with a haggard smile. The day is still young and it seems like so much has happened.
"Do you wish to meet Mr. Bradford at the gate?"
"Yes, I wish to encounter him first hand." Ciel walks down the steps to the ground, his heels squealing every step as they clank against the stone stairs.
Sebastian follows closely behind.
They leave the three house servants behind them and allow them a couple more seconds to process the thoughts of what they were supposed to do next. They all go inside and walk up the steps to the nearest bathroom, leaving a trail of red innocence behind them.
Bardroy opens the door for Finnian and allows him to squeeze by him. The landscaper looks round frantically for a place to put the bleeding girl down.
"You barmpot! Set her down already!" Bardroy yells a Finnian. The green eyes of the servant lights up when he gets the fantastic idea of setting her in the bathtub. He walks over to the tub, going towards it slowly to not stumble over his own feet like he usually does. His hands gently place the fragile girl in the tub, Mey-Rin searches through the medicine cabinet above the sink, knocking Finnian in the back of the head with her dress. Mey-Rin shuffles items around, in search for the first-aid kit.
Bardroy, who is shoved in the last space of the bathroom in between the sink and the toilet, gets impatient with clumsy maid and takes the hanging hand towel. He turns on the water in the sink to soak and rubs in some soap to be a disinfectant. He slithers his way through to the tub's side and wraps it around the woman's hand.
She cringes at the pain, the soap slowly eating away at her open wound. But she didn't speak a word.
The chef notices and looks up at her sympathetically.
"Sorry Miss.––err–––...what's your name?"
She looks at him with her big, blue eye, which is becoming a little more lively from being around people who actually care about her. She thinks about it for a couple of seconds before answering, the sudden realization that she forgot her original name hit her in the gut hard. She mumbles out her answer ever so quietly. The words roll out of her mouth lazily and fall, shattering at her blood-covered lap.
"I don't remember. I don't have one." It was odd for her, she was never asked what her name was, but she was always asked if she had a boyfriend. For some odd reason, every person her saw her always fell in love with her instantly, just based off her looks. But for the name thing, her master always labeled her as "whore" or "it." and for some odd reason, it seemed to stick to her. Not because she liked being called that, more like she was called that so often. Everyone "loved" her, but no one ever cared about her, especially in the Bradford mansion, so this whole scene was awkward for her. She was only allowed to eat one meal a day to save a couple of cheap dollars, she was always abused or beaten for some stupid reason, and there was always a reason according to her master. And the worst of all the things, Allen Bradford always tried to convince her to have sex with him. She lives a terrible life and can't stand it much longer. She has tried suicide countless times, but never succeeded. Another odd reason, she never can die.
But she was slightly positive that one day it would get better and her stars would actually shine and be noticed somewhere, for someone would take her out of her misery or she would find her Romeo. And no one would be hurt, she would have a normal life with children and a husband who cares about her, and Bradford would be brutally murdered. But that was only in the finest dream that ever existed, and dreams often lie.
All the servants that are jammed into the smallest bathroom in the mansion managed to flash a sorrowful look, for no one would understand her pain fully, and until that day comes, she searches for that single pair of shoes that walks and feels comfortable for her.
Mey-Rin cuts the melancholic tension that is growing rapidly in the room with her loud, annoying voice.
"We'll give you a name! Don't look so gloomy!"
Finnian turns round to look at the maid to see that she is holding the roll of bandages in front of her. He takes it out of her hands and turns to the bathtub. He hands it over to the cook, nervous that he would break her hand if he even touched it. Bardroy begins to wrap her hand as gently as possible.
"Yup, don't look sad. We here at Phantomhive will find a way to make you smile."
Finnian takes out one of his red bobby-pins from his blond bangs. "Maybe you'll be happy if your hair is out of your eyes." He slides it under her fluffy band that covered her other eye and pushes it in another stand to make sure it stays.
They all stop in their train of thought and gaze into her eyes with complete astonishment. Her other eye was neon green, but that's not what they were so amazed by.
She knew what was coming and they were unaware of anything at this point.
Bardroy's mouth was half-open and his unlit cigarette fell out of his mouth. His cheeks blushed feverishly, for his eyes couldn't believe that a woman so hot would be next to him. For some reason, when both of her eyes are fully shown, to him, it made the rest of her shine...well, mostly her breasts in his opinion.
But young Finnian, on the other hand, was naïve and didn't care for any of the sexual stuff. He was just overwhelmed at the fact that such a sad person could be so divine at a time like this. His heart quickly became fond of her chocolate hair and her contrasting eyes: one a glamorous midnight ocean and the other a grass field on a sunny, spring day. Either way he just wanted to skip through the garden with her outside. Dancing through the trees and newly blossoming flowers with birds all around playing with them. Oh what a sight that would be!
And even though the close-to-blind Mey-Rin could spot the woman's beauty from the distance.
"Wow! She's so beautiful!"
"That wasn't what I was thinking. But that's a nicer way to say it."
"Speak with your angel soft voice and sing with the cute birdies outside!"
Finnian and Mey-Rin kept blabbing on and Bardroy just couldn't stop thinking about her body.
The woman in the state she was in, could only take out the bobby-pin with her uninjured hand to let down her bangs. The darkness was cast once again over her eyes and hid the tears full of confusion and pain.
She didn't talk, or she always claimed she couldn't.
For the nameless beauty could only cry.
