09. strawberry cake.
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight, In the shadow of your heart. — cosmic love, florence the machine.
A Lady's routine was one of the complex duties of a Victorian England royalty's young woman. Among these duties was embroidering, learning dance, rules of etiquette, learn to play musical instruments and behave before possible suitors since a good marriage was certainly coveted.
With her social exile thanks to her mental problems, Eden was trapped inside the Phantomhive manor for almost two years and she had to adapt to her cousin's routine, which is now a young count with many responsibilities. Eden, however, did not have those same responsibilities and began to get bored frequently because of it.
The mansion also had other inhabitants: Finnian, Bard and Mey-Rin were the new employees of the house. All were highly qualified for many tasks, but none of that tasks were domestic.
Eden loved them, they were funny and even if they tormented poor Mr. Sebastian, they made things a little more interesting inside the mansion.
Speaking of Sebastian, he was still the same, the only thing he had changed was that now he was no longer so restricted.
"Lady Eden, how many times do I have to warn you? If you move your head this way, I'll end up cutting all your hair."
But he was still very restricted.
"Sorry," Eden said trying to stand quiet this time, Mey-Rin should be the one who helped her on tasks like that, but the last time the maid cut her hair, she had gone almost bald. "Maybe I should leave it as it was before, it wasn't so bad."
"Maybe it wasn't if you didn't try to cut it off by yourself."
Eden made a tearful expression.
"Sorry, Sebastian, I made you be late again," She saw him gently pull the wick from the thin strands of her hair and cut them, she heard some sounds coming from outside. "Eh? What's that noise?"
She moved her head to look behind her shoulder, but Sebastian held her head so as not to cut a bundle of hair bigger than he intended.
"Frankly, Mistress."
"I know, I know, sorry, " she cried. "But what was that noise?"
"I'm afraid the young master brought a guest." Sebastian reported, gray-haired strands fell from Eden's shoulders to the fabric on the floor. "The servants must be excited about it."
"A guest? Now?" She squeezed her lips, curious. "I didn't know my cousin was that engaged, getting visits at this time and without warning anything... I haven't even been ready yet."
"Don't worry about it, Miss Eden, the young master is bored and that means he becomes more inclined to test—"
"Your patience?"
"... My skills," Sebastian completed, Eden could say he didn't look very happy. "It's done, my lady."
"It looks beautiful!" Eden passed her fingers through her strands and Sebastian removed the cape that prevented the cut strands from her hair from sticking to her skin. "If it's any consolation, your skills are really amazing, Sebastian."
"I'm glad you appreciate it, Lady Eden." He spoke by bowing quickly with a hand placed on his chest.
"How did you learn so many things, Sebastian?" Eden tried, it was the first time she tried to know about his life, she had little interest in knowing anything specific about him.
Sebastian never talked about his personal life, and she knew he had no obligation to do so, but she considered him almost a friend after almost three years, she became curious about him at times
"Just a long period of experience, no knowledge needs to be wasted," he said with his gentle tone, folding the tissue and using his own forearm as a hanger.
"Always so wise," Eden jokes, accepted the answer with her green eyes intrigued. "Have you ever been in many places, Sebastian?"
He turned to her, seeming to think about what his answer would be.
"Yes. My former masters were from several different places. "
"Hm... Sebastian, you're really mysterious, aren't you?"
He smiled, his eyes closing in the process.
"Not so much, Mistress. All your questions will be asked if you ask for the right questions." He replied and Eden sat in the armchair in front of the dressing table. "Do you want anything else, Lady Eden?"
Eden smiled back. Honestly, those false Sebastian's smiles didn't bother her, Eden found herself at a stage where she just laughed at things rather than seriously worrying about it.
But he cut her hair into soft layers that made the strands look fuller, it was he who taught the servants everything they knew. He was extremely helpful and versatile, which intrigued her.
"I think you like to be mysterious, Mr. Sebastian." She put her hands around her waist, looking humored seeing him lose in the same position as before. "You can go. I'm not going to get in the way of your chores anymore."
"Understood. With your permission."
He started walking away, heading towards the door.
"Oh! And Sebastian..." He looked her over his shoulder while listening to her voice, the butler's hand was already on the doorknob. "We may have strawberry cake for dessert?"
"I'm the Phantomhive family butler. What good would I be if I couldn't even use a technique of this level?" Eden gave happy clapping for the butler's victory, Ciel seemed annoyed that he did not have the result he would like, the servants were ecstatic with the demonstration. Sebastian turned to his master. "In other words, young master, because I won, please, review what you learned today and prepare for tomorrow as promised."
Eden ran to the guest who was still perplexed after being hit, she bowed next to him with a compassion look.
"Don't feel so bad, sir, Sebastian is really hard to beat. It's not personal." She offered the glass with lemonade in her hand that she had not yet drunk. "How about some lemonade?"
The man responded with a depressed sound.
"That was amazing, Sebastian! That makes it 50 wins in a row!"
"You struck like water, Sebastian!"
"This house's butler is amazing!"
Finnian, Mey-Rin and Bard praised respectively, Eden stood up and faced the scene while by her side, the visitor he spat on lemonade and coughed, Eden took her hand to her lips upon realizing his reaction, Ciel looked at the man with disdain .
"The true master of this technique would accompany me to unknown regions." Ciel breathed a disappointed sigh. "Through I thought I'd be able to see you on your knees."
"That is too bad." Sebastian responded with the usual smile.
"Hmph, you did well, Sebastian. Here, drink."
"Thank you." The butler drank the contents without hesitation, Eden dismissed the drink as a reason for the cough of the kenpo master. "By the way, what all of you doing here?"
As Sebastian turned his attention to the servants, Eden approached Ciel's table, running her gaze through what was on the surface.
"If there was at least one cake here..." Eden murmured playing with lace fabric in her hair, visibly discouraged.
"It's only eight in the morning, you just ate." Ciel complained about staring at his cousin with the corner of his eyes.
Eden gave a small, provocative smile.
"Ciel... You have no right to talk about it, you eat sweets all the time."
He snorted.
"Tsk. Shut up."
"If you're have time to loaf around, then do your jobs!" They heard Sebastian brag.
"They really take away all of Mr. Sebastian's monotony." Eden commented wide-eyed.
"At least I can see him losing something." Ciel spoke with a machiavellian curve on the lips.
Eden shook her head, holding the laughter.
"You have a lot of wickedness for someone so small."
"What does my height have to do with it?" He questioned in a bad mood. "Speaking of work, Sebastian. There was a call from him in Italy."
"From Sir Claus?" Sebastian asked moving away from the armchair for his master to get up.
"Pardon me, Claus of Italy?" Eden asked.
Ciel raised an eyebrow.
"Do you know him?"
Eden shrugged.
"He was one of the patrons of the ballet spectacles at Lady Camellia College."
"Hm." He referred to Sebastian this time. "We talked about this. Come."
"As you wish." The butler answered and accompanied him.
Eden observed them both moving away.
"Ciel is getting more and more adult every day, right, Tanaka?"
"Ho, Ho, Ho."
Eden was sitting in her room, she was focused on reading the novel, unfortunately she could not imagine the protagonist as someone other than Sebastian and this had yielded several stops for at least a sigh in the scenes in which the character was being too seductive with the main character (that in her imagination had the same appearance of Mey-Rin).
There were knocks on the door and she was startled, even though the whole scene just went through her mind.
"Yes? You can come in."
Mey-Rin opened the door and Eden had to keep her composure, even though she was a little embarrassed by her previous thoughts.
"M-M-My lady, the young master asked the lady to come to his office, yes, he did."
Eden got up and put the book on the dressing table, limping it with a ribbon tie that pulled out of his hair.
"All right, thank you, Mey-Rin."
The maid nodded and walked away practically running, Eden went to her cousin's office, not understanding exactly what he wanted from her at that time.
She knocked on the door.
"Ciel?"
"Come in."
Eden turned the doorknob and entered, the boy was jammed at work, several sheets of paper were on the table. Eden approached when he waved for her to do so and sat in the armchair in front of him.
"Did something happen?"
"Claus is coming tonight, it will be one of those visits for work again. I'm just warning that you don't have to be there at dinner if you don't want to."
Eden smiled, a sad and proud smile.
Ciel was the queen's watchdog and his hands were never clean, he was so young and already so full of responsibility and still had time to worry about how she felt.
Eden felt it would be a disgrace not to attend dinner when her cousin was trying so hard.
"Don't worry about me. It would be a real rudeness to miss a dinner like this, wouldn't it?"
Ciel gave a small smile, seeming to please her decision.
"Yes, That would be."
"Is that all it is?"
"No." He put a bundle of cards on the table. "You have many suitors sending me letters, do you want to answer them?"
Ciel was a very influential young count with a mad cousin he took care of, all the rich people in London knew it, so they wanted to marry the target that seemed easy. After the wedding, it was just locking her back in a asylum and enjoying the life of easy privileges at the expense of the mad wife's family.
Eden faced the letters with some contempt.
"Can I burn it?"
"It is yours to do whatever you want."
"How are you, Mr. Claus?"
The Italian man's eyes shone under the angelic-faced young woman, he has always considered Lady Eden a true beauty since he first saw her dancing in the theatre when he had been invited to the girls' school spectacle.
She had grown up to become a beautiful young lady.
"My dear Lady Eden! Una vera bellezza! I did not know about your stay at Ciel's mansion, I should have bring something for you."
Eden denied it with her head, soft as a feather.
"Don't worry about it, your presence itself already seems to me a reason to be flattered." She reached out and felt the man's kiss on the fabric of her glove.
One of the many facets of Eden was the way her personality could transition from a playful and informal girl to a seductive and kind Lady the next minute, she was very much like her Aunt Angelina in this regard.
The servants seemed a little admired, Lady Eden used to be informal and outgoing to the point of taking the young master from the house a little from his stoicism, her posture had changed so much that it was possible to actually recognize her as a woman of high society.
"Wouldn't you talk to my lord? Because I must to do the dinner preparations." Sebastian went on to say, opening the door to the garden of the mansion. "Please, enter the courtyard. This time it is a counterbalancing entertainment ordered by my lord, we hope it pleases you."
Eden avoided sighing loud by surprise to see that the garden that she visited in the morning was now totally different.
"Here. Please, relax."
"Oh! Prestigioso! It is a rock garden straight from Japan!"
The rest of the dinner followed a funny turn, Eden paid attention to Sebastian's efforts to prevent the guest from scorning the donburi and his elaborate speech on the plate convinced him efficiently. Mey-Rin dropped wine on the tablecloth and Sebastian removed the white fabric as in a magical presentation.
Discreetly, she rubbed her feet covered in silk shoes under the table, her feet were not too pleased to be so pressed in a small space. She kept smiling even though her fingers were throbbing.
She was a little disappointed with the dessert, but it was delicious like all the things Sebastian cooked.
As a costume, Sebastian had put Ciel to sleep and prepared to go check out Lady Eden's room, this time holding a small covered tray. The custom of her going out for her sleepwalking tour of the mansion, he soon managed to detect that she was not inside the room, the essence of her soul was not so strong inside the room.
The reddish orbs of his eyes roamed the perimeter near the room quickly, but there still seemed to be no sign that she was upstairs in the mansion.
Sebastian then spun his heels and went back downstairs. Upon arriving at the main room, her essence became a little more remarkable, he faced the way to the kitchen, indicating that her exit had been recent since he had been in the kitchen before moving on to upstairs, realizing that her smell was stronger.
He went into the kitchen, apparently empty, until he noticed the half-open door of the lower cabinet.
So, here you are.
He placed the tray on the table carefully, bent down and opened the cabinet doors, Lady Eden was shrunken with glazed and defensive eyes.
"My lady, an unusual place to hide, don't you think?"
She didn't answer, she was so caught up in her own illusion that she couldn't even see his presence in front of her.
"They're coming."
She spoke at last, the language spoken by her was very old. Most of the languages she spoke were like a map that showed the places where her reincarnations were.
Sebastian knew that language, when he was walking the earth a many ages ago, there was a people who called themselves aztecah, he stayed some time with them, he was interesting the kind of worship they offered to their gods.
Some humans were real entertainment.
"Who will come?" He questioned in the same language as her, entering her fantasy as he did most of the time.
"I don't want to be the sacrifice for Tlaloc." She whispered. "I don't want to die."
He had never distinguished nothing besides the language between the personalities within Lady Eden's fantasies, but that night he was able to recognize that in that memory she was younger than in the others memories before.
"So that's it?" He said in an attractive tone, the girl soon focused on her hypnotic voice. "A small space like this won't stop you from becoming a sacrifice."
She believed in his words quickly.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I can stop the sacrifice if you be a good girl." He held out his gloved hand to Eden who stared at him with a hopeful face. "Give me your hand, little one."
Eden hesitated, her eyes suspicious, but put her hand upon his. Sebastian strategically pulled her out.
"It's time to wake up, Lady Eden."
With the sound of the name that belonged to her in this life, she blinked, returning to reality.
"Sebastian?"
"My lady, welcome back."
She shrank, hugging and squeezing the fulfilled sleeves of her nightwear.
"Oh, look where I came from this time, " Eden gave an sad smile, she looked back, noting that the cabinet doors were open and getting a brief glimpse of the situation. "I was inside the cabinet, what a vexation. Sorry again, Sebastian, the time of your precious rest is always stolen by me. "
"There is no need to apologize."
She uttered a surprise exclamation when he lifted her off the ground, she could barely relate the time she was on the floor of what was sitting on the surface of the table in the kitchen.
"It's not really appropriate for a lady to sit in a table, but as a servant, it would be diskind of me to leave you with bruised feet and no shoes on the cold floor, my lady seemed uncomfortable since the dinner."
She was embarrassed, the redness on her face denounced.
"You've noticed." She babbled, it wasn't right for a lady to lose her composure in front of a guest, Eden didn't care about social conventions in general, but that man had been important to Ciel's business.
"Of course. But just because I'm very observant, I'm sure Mr. Claus didn't notice any trace of discomfort on your face, congratulations, Lady Eden."
"Sebastian..." She let her shoulders relax, seeming to give up. "You are so helpful that it is difficult to even argue my own faults with you. Thank you for being so considerate."
"There is also no need to thank. I'm just fulfilling my duties."
"No, I know it's only the orders you received, but you've been very kind, "She intertwined her own fingers. "Seeing your face after going through different deaths every night is like seeing the exit door, knowing that I'm not the people I dream of, knowing that I'm still myself. It's a too heavy responsibility to put on anyone, but I'll be a little selfish this time, right? Forgive me."
Her smile was a bit shaky while her cheeks were very red, she was so embarrassed and trying so hard to keep her posture firm after her dogged speech that Sebastian took his back from his hands to his lips.
Lady Eden seemed about to explode with shame as she heard the butler's very brief laugh.
"M-Mr. Sebastian!" She crossed her arms and looked away. "How mean! That wasn't very kind, I take back my words!"
She was still very red despite her words, trying to appear irritated and failing miserably.
"I apologize for it, this wasn't appropriate."He said bowing, his expression was more respectful in returning to his previous posture. "Your conduct in always thanking and apologizing is commendable, my lady. But I don't really mind serving you in your needs, honestly, it's an honor to be a reason for your selfishness."
Eden felt a strange pressure on her chest with his words, her hands began to sweat and she felt a weird cold in her stomach.
Maybe she was getting sick.
"I see." She said staring at him through the corner of her eyes and then uncrossed her arms. "I didn't take back my words f-for real, I still think you is very kind."
"Understood." Sebastian told her, internally having fun with the young woman's reactions. He then took the tray that was next to her and took out the cloche. "My lady didn't seem satisfied with dessert either."
Eden pressed her lips watching the strawberry shortcake, so beautiful it seemed like a sin to eat, she rubbed her feet at each other, but not for pain this time, she was just happy but still seriously embarrassed.
"I'm glad you're so observant, then."
He smiled.
"Oh my, I'm flattered."
Tlaloc: Tlaloc (Tlá-lock) was the Aztec rain god and one of the most ancient and widespread deities of all Mesoamerica. Tlaloc was thought to live on the top of the mountains, especially the ones always covered by clouds; and from there he sent down revivifying rains to the people below [...]. One of the most common rites carried out during such ceremonies were sacrifices of children, whose crying was considered beneficial for obtaining rain. The tears of new-born children, being strictly connected with the Tlalocan, were pure and precious.(https/tlaloc-aztec-god-rain-and-fertility-172965Tlaloc).
author's note
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thanks for reading and until the next chapter!