Disclaimer: I wish I was rich. But I'm not, so I obviously only own Xaelijor, who I could argue owns herself. I don't tell her what to say, after all, she tells me what she says! Do any of your OCs do that? All of mine do, which is both a curse and a blessing...well, on to the next installment of Relinquit!

Sebastian, Ciel, and Xaelijor were all gathered in the manor's study in order to discuss what the bodyguard was. However, they wanted to know exactly how much they would have to explain.

"How much knowledge do you currently possess, Miss Elric?" Sebastian asked.

"To be entirely...Truthful, I know a lot, Mr. Mi-chae-lis.~" The wide-eyed girl gave him a too-innocent-to-be-natural smile, drawing out the name in an almost mocking manner. "For example, that you are not a human butler, are you, Mr. Mi-chea-lis?"

Ciel's eyes widened. His newest servant was a lot more observant than he had thought.

-0-

If Sebastian didn't know that she wasn't, he would have sworn she was a demon. After all, he thought, smirking, his true form's eyes contained the same red-violet fire.

"I suppose we should do this properly and reintroduce ourselves?" Sebastian suggested.

"Ah, of course. How rude of me." The golden-haired girl bowed. "My name is Xaelijor Elric, the Elemental Alchemist and ex-messenger to the being known as Truth. However, I am also Pride, the first and last of the Homunculi."

"Homunculi?" Ciel asked.

"Artificial human beings, my Lord." Sebastian explained.

"Ah, it's a lot more than that, Sir. I am a human-based homunculus, you see. Usually said kind of a homunculus would be created by injecting a Philosopher's Stone into the body." Pride fiddled with something in her pocket. "I'm a bit of a...special case. My cousin and I were fighting the previous Pride, how somehow managed to convert me into a homunculus in his attempts to possess me. That was creepy. And I didn't even know I was a homunculus until Truth told me." She was humming something under her breath now, clearly nervous about telling them this, but she seemed relieved to be saying it out loud.

"A Philosopher's Stone?" This time, it was Sebastian who picked out the important bit of information to question her about.

"The Philosopher's Stone. A supposedly mythical alchemic amplifier that could allow one to completely ignore Equivalent Exchange." There was a small pause in her rambling. "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first and most important law, the Law of Equivalent Exchange.* My cousins wanted it in order to restore something that had been lost to them. But when they found out what it was made of...they were understandably horrified, and refused to resort to it." She looked directly at Ciel. "Can you guess what would be so precious, so priceless, it could ignore that fundamental law? What Ed and Al would consider to be one of the most immoral things to ever exist?"

The Earl Phantomhive dwelled on this for a moment, digesting the information. Then he glanced at Sebastian, and he understood, remembering what had been said to him when he was making the contract. "A soul?"

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner!" Xaelijor(or was it Pride?) gave him a bitter smile. "Though it would be impractical to make a Stone with only one soul. They aren't so valuable that they aren't used up. They are made through massive human sacrifice and a very special circle. The man, and I use the term lightly, who was behind all the plotting was actually planning to turn the entire country into one in order to become God. He failed, of course, but that's not the point." She sighed. "The homunculi were created in an attempt for Father to purge himself of the Seven humanly vices: Pride, Envy, Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, and Wrath. Each one had a special power.

"Envy could shapeshift; Lust could pierce almost anything with her 'Ultimate Spear'; Greed could make a carbon shell over his skin that was harder than diamond; Gluttony was an attempt to recreate the Gate, and could eat anything; Sloth had extreme strength and mobility, which he rarely used; Wrath could see attacks before they hit him, unless there was something solid between him and the attacker; and Pride had shadows under his command, which could to some extent do everything that the other homunculi could." As she said this, she let her shadows flood the room, before giving them a mental "tug" to reign them back in. She smiled ambiguously, before giving the butler an appraising look. "So that's who, and what, I am. How about Sebastian, then? Your reaction time is much too quick for a human…plus you survived several bullet wounds to the vitals."

Cile grudgingly untied his eyepatch, revealing the Faustian Contract now forever imprinted on his right eye. Simultaneously, the raven demon pulled off his left glove, showing the same symbol to the homunculus. Sebastian gave her a condescending smirk. "I am merely...a demon and a butler."

"A demon, huh?" Pride smacked herself on the forehead. "So you're telling me that that whole 'one hell of a butler' thing was a frickin' pun? I'm so disappointed-and here I thought I was smart!"

After that, the rest of the chat went quickly, though one thing was certain. Nobody who had been in that room would look at each other in the same light again.

*Almost directly from the first anime, but not quite.

So they learn that lil' ol' Xaeli is Pride, and she learns about the Contract between the Earl and the Raven.

A lot will be similar to the manga, but there will be definite differences! Especially since there'll be chapters like this one, which are based directly around Xaelijor. I have decided that from this point on, Xaelijor as a boy will be referred to as Pride, and as a girl she'll be Xaelijor, just to help keep track of things.

Hei hei!

~Pride