Agni walked through the Phantomhive mansion, unsure what to do. He didn't know how to complete this task. He knew very little about Aliya and Sebastian didn't seem like the kind of man to readily discus family matters. As he past a hallway he suddenly noticed Aliya sitting by herself. She rested, holding her knees, on the bottom steps of a staircase. Even if he wasn't on a mission to help, Agni would have stopped to talk with her. The girl looked depressed and lonely.
"What are you doing here, Aliya-dono?" he asked as he stepped towards her.
"I could ask you the same thing." Aliya glanced up at him. Her bangs fell around her face like a curtain, the same way Sebastian's did. She wasn't wearing her gloves again but her gray nails didn't attract attention.
"My prince doesn't need me at the moment. I thought I'd look around." Agni sat down on the floor in front of the staircase.
"Hemph. I'm here because there's nothing to do." Aliya rested her chin on her knees and studied the man.
"This is quite a large house. There must be some task for you," he said.
"I'm not officially employed. I just live with Sebastian," the girl told him.
"You don't help your father with his chores?" Agni found this hard to believe.
"Sebastian is a stupid obsessive perfectionist, he doesn't want my help," she said bitterly. Agni was taken back by her speech.
"Don't you think that is a little disrespectful?" he pointed out. This struck a nerve with Aliya.
"I'll talk about that bastard any way I want to! He doesn't like me. He didn't even want me," she blurted out.
"I'm sure that's not true," Agni tried to reassure her.
"You don't know anything," Aliya muttered and closed her mouth, unwilling to say more.
"I know quite a bit. I rebelled against my own father," Agni spoke tenderly to her. Aliya stared at the floor and ignored him. Her silence didn't deter Agni. He told her about his life, how he had been a beast of a man until Soma saved him from himself. Once he finished his story, Agni waited patiently for Aliya to say something.
"I have no god," the girl said softly, "Hinduism, Christianity, any religion. It doesn't matter; nobody will have the likes of me. I can never have a god or someone like Soma." Aliya's voice remained void of emotion.
"Aliya-dono?" Agni did not know what to say to that.
"Don't call me that!" The girl bolted upright. This completely surprised poor Agni. "You have no reason to be so respectful towards me. There is no reason a strong person like you to value my existence."
"Everyone has significance," Agni insisted.
"I bet you wouldn't say that if you knew about my past," Aliya muttered. She dropped the subject and returned to silence.
"Why can't you have a god, Aliya-dono?" Agni asked.
"Beside from the fact that my creation was blasphemy?" she said angrily.
"No birth is such a thing," the man argued.
"How can a creature like me believe in anything?" Aliya stood up to leave. "My mother preyed on trust and hopes to manipulate me. She kept me locked in the basement of a church and would use an alter as a whipping post." Aliya walked up the stairs without a backward glance. She could almost sense Agni's eyes widening with pity as he realized just how badly she had been abused. She didn't want to see his face.
After speaking with Aliya, Agni only became more determined to help her. Sebastian must be brought to realize how desperately she needed his help. "Raising a child could do Sebastian-dono good as well." Agni considered. Taking care of Aliya would help Sebastian connect to others better. The man always seemed aloof. Agni still didn't have much of a plan but he knew what he had to do.
Agni went to the kitchen where he found Sebastian.
"Sebastian-dono, are your working on dinner?"
"I was about to start the sauces then go about my other chores," he answered.
"I find myself with little to do at the moment. May I take over meal preparations?" Agni asked.
"Go ahead. It would be helpful if you could also find jobs to preoccupy the other servants," Sebastian agreed. He recalled how easily Agni had tamed the normally troublesome humans. That had truly impressed the demon, not an easy thing to do.
Agni began his work and greeted the servants as they started to appear. They were all eager to help out in the kitchen because Sebastian rarely let them do so. He quickly found tasks for each of them to do. He wondered why Sebastian found them so unmanageable. Almost an hour past and Agni started to worry that his mission would not be accomplished. Then, to his relief, he noticed Aliya lurking in the doorway.
"Aliya-dono, would you like to come in?" Agni asked the girl kindly. She stared at him questioningly.
"I could use some help chopping these vegetables," he offered.
"Alright," Aliya decided. She accepted the knife and started to cut produce. Aliya enjoyed having something productive to do but she didn't let it show.
After cutting several carrots in silence Aliya started to get antsy.
"Agni, why is your hand like that?" she asked. The girl could sense power hidden inside the human. She set down the knife and turned to look at him.
"My right hand moves only to protect my god, Soma-sama. Belief in my god grants me the power to serve him," Agni tried to explain. To his surprise, Aliya reached over and took a hold of his wrist. She held his hand in front of her face and gazed at it. Agni wasn't sure what she was doing but Aliya looked into his soul. Her father had told her not to use that power anymore but she didn't care. What her girl saw in Agni's soul completely baffled her.
"You are very much human, you are not flawless, you make mistakes, and you do not pretend to be something you are not. Yet, you wield almost as much power as my mother or father." Aliya glanced up at his face. "I do not understand how the will to protect 'your god' can make you so strong. How can simply caring about another person be as powerful as something born from the depths of heaven or hell? I will never understand that, so I won't even try to figure it out." She released Agni's hand and returned to her cutting board. Agni didn't comprehend all of what she had said or done but he could recognize her sadness.
"I'm sure you will come to understand the strength loyalty and friendship one day, Aliya-dono," he told her. Aliya paused at his words but did not look up.
The two didn't speak on the subject again. Aliya stayed at the cutting board as Agni and the other servants worked around her. For almost ten minutes nobody spoke with the girl. Then Agni decided to break the silence, "Would you prefer to continue cutting vegetables or help Maylene set the table?" he asked Aliya.
"I'm happy here," Aliya actually smiled. Agni was glad, he felt as though he had gotten through to her. Aliya seemed more relaxed since coming into the kitchen. She had been lonely before and was now happy to be useful. "How could Sebastian-dono not care for this child?" Agni wondered. He would soon find out, because at that moment, Sebastian entered the kitchen.