A/N: Hey! Thank you to those who reviewed; I'm really glad you liked the first chapter so much! :D I hope you all like chapter and I hope you think Ciel is beginning to become more in character!
Edit: The document manager isn't working out for me at the moment, so if it seems confusing, here's an explanation - A new reincarnation starts with the bold date and country, and it ends when it reaches the paragraphs in italics after a line break, at which point it switches to a memory of their first life. The line break that comes after that memory is the start of another life. So basically, the line breaks that occur without it switching to italics or a new life is part of the life you're currently reading. Bah, it'll make sense when you read it, and I'll see if I can fix it tomorrow D:
1285 A.D. China
"What is this feeling? Why does my mind feel the need to indulge in miserable echoes of pity, sadness, regret, longing and despair? Echoes they may be, but compose yourself… You are a demon. Cold, uncaring, unloving –"
Crash!
"Do watch where you're going! Imbecile."
The fourth time they met, it started with an argument. How the demon hadn't seen the younger boy walking down the hall of the palace towards him, he didn't know.
"You could have walked around me." Simple. But the younger boy wasn't giving up.
"I did. But then you seemed to have saw fit to move as I did, crashing into me. Do you realise how annoyed the Emperor will be? Those herbs were for his sick son!" The boy he had crashed into retorted quickly and smoothly, prompting the demon to look up and promptly give an annoyed sigh at the appearance of an almost-ill looking Ciel. Typical. The one time they meet where Ciel was neither a target, thief or an off-limits servant, and he had to get into a 'heated discussion.'
"And Zhenjin was unable to garner these herbs on his own?" The demon asked, carefully analysing the current Ciel. His hair was full black, although when he moved his head and allowed the light to hit it, it went to the greyish blue that the demon would normally recognise him by. His eyes were still their vivid blue, the right eye supporting a nasty scar beneath it. At seeing the demon's gaze directed onto the scar, Ciel smacked his hand over his eye, attempting to carefully pick up the broken china and herbs with only one hand.
"In case you didn't hear me; Zhenjin is ill. So no, he is not able to collect and use these herbs on his own." Ciel moved his hand from his eye, pushing his hair onto his face before using both hands to pick up the remaining china pieces. The demon knelt down next to him, helping with the china and herbs.
"You are young for a servant, are you not? At least, young for this kind of work. I would have thought someone like you would be helping out with the maids." The answer to his words was a sharp scoff.
"Watch your words, servant. I'm the general's son, Ciel Phantom. I merely offered to collect the herbs for Zhenjin after seeing the Emperor's distress over his son's health. Now pass me the broken china; ancestors forbid should a person see the state of such fine china." He shook his head, pulling the china from Sebastian's hands and stopping dead when he noticed the bowl was repaired and perfect, not a single scratch or crack on the surface. Resting in the bowl were most of the herbs that had originally been in there before their collision.
"I would suggest, young man, that you close your mouth. It is a most unattractive quality when one resembles the Koi in the palace ponds."
"I-I how did you do that? I could have sworn that the china had smashed; I even have cuts from the shards!" Ciel protested, but the bowl was shoved into his hands abruptly.
"Now, I do not think the Emperor will appreciate you being late, nor would the general. Hurry." As the demon said this, Ciel gave a frustrated groan, gripped the china bowl tightly and stalked off.
The demon only smirked, not noticing the warning in the skinnier frame of Ciel.
"Pass me the knife… good girl. Now, see how this piece of thread sticks out a little bit? Don't pull at it." The voice echoed from the servant's area of the kitchens, inaudible to anyone but the demon that had paused outside the doors to listen in. He slipped into the shadows in the mostly empty kitchen, watching as Ciel sat on a stool opposite a girl no older than five, a needle and thick thread resting on the eating table next to them. Ciel gave a smile to the young girl, cutting through something in his hands before handing it down to the patiently waiting girl. The demon could see that it was a worn, old toy rabbit with a head of porcelain, covered in stitched cloth and decorated to make it seem cuter and softer for the girl. Ciel seemed to have sown an arm back onto the toy, if the loose thread was anything to go by.
"Thank you for fixing her…" Her voice was quiet as she hugged the toy to her chest tightly in the dim light of the kitchens. Ciel gave her a brighter smile that seemed almost fake to the demon.
"Don't mention it. Now remember, keep her close; she'll protect you from demons and other nasty things." As he whispered 'demons', the demon in the room was certain that Ciel's eyes had flickered over to his hiding spot. Ciel tapped the young girl on the nose, making her give a shy giggle before he led her to one of the tapestries on the far wall, pulling it aside.
"If you go through here, you'll be back in the sleeping area before anyone catches you." The little girl gave a serious nod, clutching the toy tightly before disappearing down the passage. Ciel gave an audible sigh, shaking his head fondly before turning and nearly yelping in surprise at the demon leaning against one of the walls. He was considerably closer to Ciel than when he had first entered.
"Staying out in the servant's kitchen when we shouldn't be, young man?" Ciel narrowed his eyes at the demon, moving back to his stool and carefully sitting upon it, trying to distract the demon's attention as he hid the needle and thread.
"I could say the same to you, but you're only a servant." He sneered, pulling at the sleeves of his tunic and slipping the needle up the sleeve. The demon noticed it.
"A servant I may be, but I'm much more important to Zhenjin than other servants." A subtle hint. One that Ciel didn't pick up on.
"Either way, you should not be awake at this time of the morning."
"Neither should you."
The demon hid a smirk at Ciel's muttered grumble; it was something along the lines of 'act like you're better than me one more time, and this needle will be fast friends with your pretty face.' Ciel lowered his head before flinging his arm out quickly, throwing the thick and sharp needle and letting it cut through the air towards the demon. When he caught it between two fingers without so much as a blink, Ciel's eyes narrowed further.
"You're not human, are you?" He stood up from the stool, braving a step towards the demon.
"Oh? What would make you think that?" At the demon's words, Ciel gave him a deliberate look before speaking.
"First off, that little trick would be impossible. No human should have been able to see a needle that thin shoot towards them. Secondly, although you act exactly as a servant of China and Crown Prince Zhenjin should, you would have been dismissed on the first day for having your hair that length. It's too short; you'd be considered disrespectful, so the prince must have a very special reason for keeping you. The third clue? Zhenjin had been trying to convince his family for years that Confucianism should be supported. You showed up a few months ago, and suddenly even the Emperor agrees with it. A day later, Zhenjin takes ill, and all the while there is a look of hunger on your face, as if you are waiting for him to die." Ciel had moved from where he was standing to one of the wooden cabinets, rifling around it quietly as he spoke.
"Only the first statement is not ludicrous enough to be correct." The demon was intrigued; surprised that Ciel had figured everything out so quickly. Briefly, he wondered if it was due to vague memories of his past lives. That thought disappeared the moment he remembered that Ciel had just thrown a needle at him, and was now subtly eyeing up the knife in the cabinet.
"Ah, ludicrous statements they may be, but true, yes?" Ciel closed the cabinet doors, holding a small fruit in his hand. The demon wondered if he was either going to eat it or throw it.
"What about your own hair? It too is unusually short, is it not?" A dark look flashed across Ciel's face at the demon's words.
"You avoid answering my question, servant."
"And you avoid answering mine." Ciel gave a frustrated groan, slowly moving back to his stool.
"I'm already a disgrace to my father. What difference would a bit of disrespect make?" The demon's red eyes widened momentarily as Ciel whispered his words in a resigned wonder.
"Your father is the general, yes? How are you a disgrace?" The demon edged closer, leaning against the table and looking down at the sitting boy.
"I'm sitting here in a tunic and cotton pants, when I should be on a battlefield, or in a training camp. I'm not the eldest, nor the youngest, but at sixteen I should be able to compete with my brothers for the title of General when the time comes. I cannot." Ciel put his head in his hands, elbows on the table to prop himself up.
"Why aren't you in the army? Why can't you compete with your brothers?" There was a small glimmer of concern in the demon's voice, one that made the demon realise there was something seriously wrong if he was feeling concern, of all things.
"I was a weak child when born. I was even weaker growing up, to the point where my mother kept me indoors; not because she cared about me, but because she was ashamed. At five years old, they reported that I was too weak to survive the coming winter and sent me here to be looked after by the servants. I was still given gifts by my parents, but never loved by them. At fourteen, I was tested by my father to be trained for the army, to test if my strength had improved. I was bested by a child younger than myself." The demon calmly raised his eyebrow at this, crossing his arms as he leaned against the table.
"Some people are not made for life in the army. It does not make you a disgrace; merely different." Ciel gave a scoff, shaking his head.
"In China, I'm not too sure which of those is worse." Ciel retorted, standing up from his stool and making his way towards the tapestry on the other side of the kitchens. His hand hovered over the fabric, head turned to look behind him at the demon. The demon moved a fraction of an inch, stopping at the sound of footsteps coming down the long corridor outside the kitchens. Before Ciel could even blink the demon was behind him, pushing him through the passage hidden by the tapestry.
"It would perhaps be best for you to run along that passage. No, don't look at me like that, young man. I can hide more effectively than you ever could." The demon was gone before Ciel could even protest.
When the Prince died the very next day and his soul given to the Demon, he was summoned almost immediately afterwards by a woman on the other side of China. Once that business was over and done with, he returned to the palace in search of the soul that had kept popping up in his life. He scoured the palace two years later looking for the young servant who had been the son of the General.
His findings brought him only to an elaborate coffin of a seventeen year old that had died of sickness in the winter, forever wondering what had happened to the demon.
"Why would eye colour make you assume someone was a demon?" At his words, the Prince closed the heavy book in his arms and crossed his legs on his window seat, leaving enough space on the long seat for someone else to sit down.
"Are you still thinking about that topic, Ciel?" At the use of his name and the patting from the prince on the seat across him, the servant turned a delicate pink and shook his head.
"Yes, I am still wondering, my Prince. And no thank you, it would be impertinent for me to sit down." The prince narrowed his eyes.
"Either sit down, or you will not get an answer from me."
"I assure you, my Prince, that I am fine stand-"
"Sit down." At the tone in his voice, the servant promptly but calmly sat down on the window seat, eyes widening when he saw the sight from the window. From his window, the prince could see the docks, the slums of the small country, the wealthier households and, not too far behind it all, the sea that seemed to stretch for miles. Now he understood why the Prince always stayed near the window whilst he was not in the room.
"A fine view, is it not? I despise it. But to your question. How many people do you know with red eyes? How many people do you know with red eyes that seem to defy all nature, shockingly pale despite this country's weather, faster than is normal with a devilish hunger flaring behind their eyes?"
"None."
"Exactly. So what could he have been?" At the question, the servant fumbled with his hands. He'd a vague idea of something else, but that had been what his mother had once told him to stop him from wandering the house at night when he was a child.
"A revenant?"
The Prince had to fight very, very hard to hold back his laughter.
1348 A.D. A ship heading to Weymouth, England
Their fifth meeting didn't last long. The demon had been wandering around a trade ship, ignoring the bumbling man next to him and keeping his eyes on the Captain of the ship. The captain merely glanced down at him from where he was controlling the ship, his hair whipping around his face due to the stormy winds on the ocean. Had the demon still been human, he was certain that he would have vomited by now.
He briefly thought back to Ciel. The soul seemed to be haunting his thoughts much more frequently, to the point where the demon was getting annoyed with himself. He'd never got to taste the boy's lips when they were both alive, having only reached the jaw line when they were caught, and in every revival afterwards something would snatch him away before he had a chance to catch him.
The warning to him that he had been given on their last two meetings was relatively clear to him now. Every time Ciel's soul seemed to come back into the cycle of life, the physical embodiment was getting weaker. It never changed appearance though; Ciel had looked more or less the same in each embodiment. Not only that, but the age that the demon would see him seemed to be decreasing too. If the demon didn't hurry up and get the boy – or perhaps man – he wouldn't find the soul again at a suitable age. He could hardly claim a five year old boy.
The demon shook his head at the thoughts, pushing his hair from his face and moving down to the lower levels of the ship; he'd heard that there were some rare breeds of cats being transported. They fascinated him more than the pesky soul that kept arriving in his life. He stopped outside the door, however, when he heard a whimper, accompanied with heavy breathing and the sound of vomiting. Great, he thought. One of the sailors must have gained sea sickness.
Pushing the door open, the sight that greeted him was surprising and definitely not expected. Curled up in a corner of the room lay Ciel himself, deathly pale and vomiting up blood into an empty crate. Small black dots speckled his face and visible hand, and the boy seemed to be shaking from cold. He stepped closer slowly, the wooden door slamming behind him and causing the boy to snap his head up before he vomited again. In the second that his head snapped up, the demon was faced with three lumps on the side of Ciel's neck. The demon knelt next to the ill boy, pulling him out from the cramped corner and propping him up against a larger crate as Ciel continued to vomit and splutter out blood.
Roughly, he tilted the boys head to the side, examining the smooth lumps that surrounded a tiny, almost unnoticeable, bite mark.
"What happened to your neck?" He asked in the softest tone he could muster, slowly running his hand over the lumps and frowning. Ciel ceased his vomiting momentarily, his left hand quickly slapping up to his neck to feel the lumps. His eyes widened and he gave a desperate cry; he hadn't even known they were there.
"Plague." His words were laced with a distant fear, eyes slightly widened as he hung his head to be ill once more. The demon shook his head.
"It's very unlikely to be plague." A lie. "Tell me how you got this bite on your neck." Ciel pointed to the small crate that he had been leaning against in the corner.
"Rat. They were experimenting on it, doing horrific things to the other rats in the hospital. Father had just died, mother is long gone, and I took the rat and ran. It bit me as I hid it in my clothing."
"How many days ago was this?" The demon asked, relatively calm despite the small hint of dread that seemed to be flickering behind his crimson eyes. Ciel closed his eyes, counting mentally.
"Um… Four days ago? I think. Maybe it was five." Ciel closed his eyes, his heavy breathing echoing in the small cargo room. The demon shook his head.
"You shouldn't have done that. You've just dug your own grave, I'm afraid. You should be dead by now."
"I'd guessed as much. I thought I'd go to England because it is Plague free. I don't think I'll be alive when we get to the port. Fifteen, and I'll be dead before morning." He shook his head, rubbing at his temples and vomiting up more blood. The demon looked at the boy's hand, taking it and examining the little black spots. Pushing the sleeves of his tattered clothing up his arm, he saw more littering his arm.
"Your skin is already decaying, dying. Are you in pain?" At the question, Ciel merely gave him a pointed look before throwing up once more. The demon placed his hand to Ciel's forehead, muttering a small curse. Being a demon, he was generally a warm person, hating any cold and his body temperature was well above average. Despite this, he could still feel the heat from Ciel's forehead. He didn't have long left.
"Everything hurts…" Ciel moaned out suddenly, curling up and resting his head on the side of the crate he was vomiting in, not caring about his hair ends touching the blood he had vomited. The demon was about to give a reply when his hand tingled, signalling that he was wanted by his master. Gently, he pushed the boy's hair away from his face before swiftly moving with a quiet, half genuine promise to be bac quite soon.
When the demon had gone down to the cargo, he hadn't expected to see a dying Ciel. When he went back down a second time an hour later after his business was done and they were arriving at the port, Ciel was long since dead, the body laid out on the floor with his arms tucked to his stomach. The demon gave a resigned sigh, shaking his head and moving to the crate in the corner which contained the single rat that had bitten Ciel. Surprisingly, it was still alive. He should have killed it, really he should have.
Instead, however, he quietly left the room after adjusting Ciel's body, holding the crate tightly as he stepped off the ship and onto the docks of Weymouth. Bending down next to a dampened alley, he slid the lid off the top of the crate, allowing the plague-infected rat into the streets of a plague-free England.
"Reapers, prepare to judge the lives of many these next few weeks."
"Why do you not like this view, my Prince?"
"A simple reason, really. My family considers the view from my window the most beautiful. But tell me, what is beautiful about seeing the slums of the city, the terror of the wealthy, and the struggles of the slaves? What is beautiful about seeing that blue ocean, lapping against the shore and taunting you? Looking at the life of the ocean and knowing that it will live forever, whilst you will soon be a corpse, six feet under?"
"S-soon to be a corpse?" The Prince laughed at the horror in the servant's voice.
"My father may believe we are immortal. He may have convinced my brothers that we are. But not me. I see the sickness inside him. He seems to think that if he makes himself believe he will never die, then his death will never come. But you can calm down, Ciel. When I said 'soon to be a corpse' I did not mean in the near future."
"I-I…I didn't- I…"
1484 A.D. England
The sixth time they met, it was rather by accident. Not that the other times weren't accidental, but this one tended to make the demon cringe every time he would think of it. Their parting was what made it particularly worse.
"Until you complete your task, you can serve as my daughter's tutor, and occasionally, my son's. I teach him myself, most days, but there are times when I cannot. He seems to think he can get away with no lessons." The portly man gave a gruff laugh, clapping the demon on the shoulder. The demon merely glared at the hand in disdain until the man let go. The man continued talking, but the demon completely ignored him in favour of his thoughts. What if the soul reappeared in the next hundred years? He'd only just been able to return to England without the reapers following his tracks, and there had seemed to be a connection with every place that the soul tended to appear in.
Constantinople had been Greek, just like Arkoi was when they had first met. Constantinople had a trade link with India, which was where they had met the third time. India had a trade link with China along the Silk Road, one that the seventeen year old Ciel had business along. China was where he had appeared next, weaker than ever before. The link to France had been completely random for the fifth time they had met, although the ship may have had some significance he couldn't identify. And England, of course, where he had released the rat that had killed Ciel and allowed it to spread the plague.
He was broken from his musings at the sound of a door banging open, a young girl bursting through with tears in her eyes and launching herself towards the portly man.
"Father! Brother is being terrible again!" She wore a floor length houppelande, the long draping sleeves flying about as she waved to get her father's attention. The gown was old, well out of fashion and, if the look from the man's face was anything to go by, something he didn't approve of his daughter wearing. Her hair had been pulled back, although the demon could tell that if it was let down, it would be nothing short of large, voluminous blonde curls.
"What is he saying, child?" At the question, tears swelled up in her eyes again.
"He's saying that he'll lock me in the tower of London, and that I'll end up like dear old Edward and Richard!" The girl gave an upset sob, clutching at her fathers sleeve. The demon held back a groan; he knew he wasn't going to enjoy tutoring this girl. His eyes lifted to the door when someone else stepped through, sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his arms and a frown on his face.
"I did not say it quite like that. We were discussing what could have happened to Edward and Richard, since we haven't seen them since they were sent to the tower, and I merely implied that they had been killed in the last year. She started to shout, so I told her that I'd lock her in and allow her to go the same way they did." They boy was leaning against the wall, eyebrow raised at the crying girl who scowled at him behind her father's back. The portly man gave an annoyed groan.
"Ciel! You do not know the fate of the two princes; do not upset your sister over it."
"Oh their fate is obvious. We used to see them every month until the King died, and then we only saw them once last year. Edward should have been King, but he's not because he's not 'legitimate' when he very clearly is. Unless he and his brother are dead, King Richard should remove his fat-" He was cut off by the demon's hand over his mouth, the demon having sensed the rest of his sentence before it came out and stopping him from saying it. There was a nod of thanks from Ciel's father.
"My thanks. Ciel, Elizabeth, this is your new tutor. You are to address him as 'Professor' and nothing less." The demon moved his hand from the boy's mouth just as he moved to bite the hand. The demon frowned, raising an eyebrow when Ciel pushed away from him.
"Don't touch me!"
This would be tricky.
"I do not like you, tutor."
"Oddly enough, young man, I gathered that."
"I'm simply making it clear. You've a motive."
"I am a tutor, and nothing more."
"See, I don't believe that."
"Oh? And why not?"
"You're hiding something; that is why." There was a silence at Ciel's statement before the demon quickly removed his hands from the hammered dulcimer just as Ciel swung the small mallet full force to where the demon's fingertips had been a fraction of a second before.
"Now, really young man, was that necessary? Do not be quick to assume that you know everything!" The demon gritted his teeth together as he asked the question, steadily despising the attitude of a younger Ciel. Ciel merely smirked, placing the mallet on the table next to the instrument and staring at the demon.
"I've been raised by many people, professor." Ciel started, spitting out the word professor bitterly and moved around the table towards the Demon. "I was recently raised by a French maid; before that, Chinese servants. Before that, an Indian woman. Before her, it was a master Grecian thief. And before that I was raised by my Greek parents until the Queen spotted me." Ciel picked the mallet up again, twirling it around in his hand and keeping his smirk locked onto the demon. The demon rolled his eyes, almost annoyed until he realised what Ciel was actually saying.
"Do not be ridiculous; your parent's are-"He cut himself off, realising that if Ciel reversed that list of people, it would spell out his previous lives in chronological order. The demon groaned, unsure if the boy knew what he was talking about.
"So you see…" Ciel lightly tapped the demon on the nose with the small mallet. "Young Ciel here does in fact, know everything." He hissed the last word through his teeth, moving over to the door and gripping the handle tightly. The demon watched him, making sure to keep an eye on the mallet in his hand as Ciel turned.
"And, if I recall correctly, you seemed to have had no problem teaching me what I didn't know the first time we parted way's for an extended period." This was said very, very innocently, but the demon noticed the burning fire behind the young boy's eyes as he glanced back before leaving the room.
"Father, is it not unusual that someone of the professor's rank should be… here?" Elizabeth carefully voiced the question, unsure as to whether she could speak as she clasped her hands together on her lap. A servant quietly leaned across at the same time, blocking the discrete blow from the girl's mother as she picked up several plates from the table.
"My dear, your tutor is a renowned member of the King's court. To deny him such hospitality…" The man trailed off, but the girl seemed satisfied. She flashed a smile before returning to silence.
"Indeed but, if he is such a renowned member of court, why can we not know his name?" Ciel asked, prodding at his food with a fork. The demon raised his eyebrows, eyes locked with Ciel's as the boy kept his eyes on him.
"You are to refer to him as 'professor.' There is no real need to know his name, boy." Ciel narrowed his eyebrows, but continued eating. The demon gave him a grin that unnerved the boy, before speaking.
"If I may inquire; did you learn any French from this previous maid of yours?" He asked, a polite tone to his voice with an underlying wickedness that was hidden to all but Ciel. Said boy's eyes widened momentarily before he gave an innocent shrug.
"I'm afraid I'm not too sure what you're talking about, professor." Ciel folded his hands together as he glanced at his father before returning eye contact with the demon.
"Oh, but I think you do." The demon turned to Ciel's father; he could see the flicker of fear behind the boy's cold eyes as he started to speak.
"You see, just this morning, I was having an interesting conversation with your son. He told me how he was recently raised by a French maid, and has had Chinese servants, Indian servants and Greek servants. Indeed, I did not know you employed such a different amount of nationalities, sir."
Ciel face palmed. The demon smirked. Ciel's father turned quickly on his son to inquire the reason for his 'lies'.
"Now!"
"Young man, young lady, I must insist that you-"
"Dear God, just what is going on in here?" By the time the father had entered the room, Ciel and Elizabeth were sat calmly on the rug in front of the massive fireplace, one hiding a giggle behind gloved hands and another pretending to warm his hands against the fire.
"Father, I do not believe that the professor has been properly… trained." Ciel spoke up with a serious tone in his voice, ignoring the warning glare that was coming from the demon once it figured out what he was trying to do. It would be a waste of time; Demon's didn't get embarrassed. Annoyed, but never embarrassed. Elizabeth was under the illusion they were making him embarrassed, but Ciel was purposely pulling at his nerves.
"Whatever do you mean, boy?"
"Well you see… Dear Elizabeth and I returned here after dinner, and our dear professor arrived shortly after. We came to the conclusion that we should tell him a tale, of sorts. A scary one involving demons." He trailed off, giving a wicked grin to the demon, but his eyes reflecting a deep annoyance.
"And, well father, poor professor here just got so scared… He had a little accident. I do hope he hasn't stained the furniture." Elizabeth continued, looking genuinely worried and glancing back at the professor. Ciel gave her a sweet, innocent smile before moving to leave the room. He looked up at his father as he passed, opening his mouth to speak.
"Isn't that funny? He was never told as a child that demon's don't exist." He gave a tut as he left. The father knew he had been caught out. So did the demon.
"Do you believe in reincarnation-" Sebastian never finished his question; Ciel had dropped the vase he had been cleaning in surprise. He wasn't aware that the Prince was awake.
"I- I'm sorry!"
"Leave it. I'll get someone else to clean it later. For now, answer my question." Sebastian sat up from where he'd been laying and staring at the ceiling. Ciel gave a frown, pulling the drapes away from the windows. The prince moved to his window seat.
"No. I don't, my Prince."
"I see. Sometimes, when I'm either dreaming or simply not thinking of anything, I gain flashes of a life that isn't mine; only, it is mine. And then an odd feeling overtakes me. It's hard to describe it; only that it makes me know that this is my last incarnation. It tells me to enjoy life as it is now, because I'll never see it again. I told you once that I hated the view from this window. The truth is, I can't bear to like it, because if I'm never to walk the earth again in a different life, I don't want to have lost something I loved."
"That is a very, sad thought. I find it difficult to comprehend."
"Indeed. In later lives, I hope you see something that will remind you of me, this me. Something that will remind you of this conversation, and will make you think 'Sebastian was right.'" He gave a smirk, watching as Ciel scraped up the last pieces of the vase and tossed it out the window.
"Irony would dictate that that trigger would be you, my Prince."
"Oh? Speaking out with such a tone against your superior, are you? I wonder… But no matter. There is, however, one thing that, if I am to never live again, I would miss in the afterlife. I've grown fond of this thing for a very long time now, perhaps even grown to love it if such a thing is possible."
"Forgive me for asking, my Prince, but may I inquire as to what that is?" Ciel asked carefully, pulling at the ties of the drapes to distract himself from the feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sebastian looked over at him, a wicked smirk gracing his lips.
"You."