I apologize for posting later than normal. It's been a hell of a Monday.
Thank you to each and every one of you that has followed/favorited and reviewed this story. I cannot put into words how humbled and thrilled I am that my work is being enjoyed.
I do not own Kuroshitsuji. Don't sue me. I don't have anything, anyway.
Menefer, to Marcus' delight, preferred to sleep in the nude. No bindings or translucent gowns, linen shifts, or gilded corsets could touch her exquisite form when she slept. She wore the necklace he'd brought her from Cynopolis, a carnelian obelisk on a thin gold chain. It pooled in the hollow of her throat and the moonbeams shining through the pillars of her suite cast curious shadows over her sand storm skin.
She'd been in the house of the Pharaoh for almost a year. She was quickly decimating the ranks of his favored fighters. Marcus suspected she was not far from the top of Pharaoh's list of favorites. It didn't hurt that she was remarkably beautiful compared to the lot of women in his harem, and though she complained about it to Marcus, she put on one hell of a show when the king summoned her to his bed chambers.
She had been there that night, he noted, but she had tried to bathe it away. He found he didn't care for the scent of the king. The ruler of Egypt was too conscientious about creating an heir outside of his rightful queen-he had the bad habit of spilling his seed on Menefer's body rather than inside it. Not that it was much of a problem for either of them-Marcus preferred she kept her body in prime physical condition and Menefer had no want of children by any means. The demon assumed if she were able to bear children at any rate, she'd have grown thick with one from his own seed by then. He had no such burden of conscience when it came to where he spilled his own seed. Be it in her mouth or her belly, she would take it and pretend to love it like he'd taught her. Her indifference to such was a necessary evil in the game of seducing a king.
Marcus snuck into her room on nearly a nightly basis. She was good enough to be considered her own guard, and the beaded curtains that hung between her chambers and the next were thick and woven through with ribbons of dyed linen. The glass beads would tinkle if they were disturbed and Marcus could vanish in the blink of an eye.
She was the only woman in the palace, excluding the Queen herself, that possessed a gold bed. She had killed the previous favorite and claimed the priceless piece of furniture as her own. It glinted eerily in the moonlight, the clawed lion's feet worked through with a pattern of onyx that seemed to alternately drink in the dim glow and bend it to reflect out with a silver gleam. The claws were tipped with chipped rubies and the short railing that circumvented the frame was etched with a love story, depicting a human woman that had fallen in love with the dark god of the underworld, Anubis. Marcus found it amusingly fitting.
The demon knelt at Menefer's bedside and, resisting the urge to wake her in a more primal fashion, reached out and passed his hand over her face, a hairsbreadth from actually touching her skin. His will awoke her and her eyes, heavy with sleep, fluttered open and for a moment she was frozen. As consciousness filled her eyes, she turned her face to the demon and her mouth widened to a surprised smile.
"I did not think you would come tonight-"
"I haven't come for your body. I've come to make sure you are prepared."
Her smile abruptly leveled and scorn replaced the gleam in her brown eyes. She rolled over, turning her back to him. "Of course I am prepared."
Marcus laughed at how quickly the love in her expression turned to hate. She would need that hate, he figured. It was hard to murder someone in their sleep when you were giddy and carefree. It was much easier when your mind was focused and you could put a name to your hatred. She would need that focus when she killed the Queen. She would need it all the way to her coronation.
"I leave now for Cynopolis. I have business there tomorrow. I won't be here to save you should you fail, my dear."
Her only response was an indignant "Hmph". He smiled again.
He knew she had her tools in place. The guard would change in a couple of hours and the Queen was sleeping in her own chambers that night. Menefer need only waltz into her majesty's bed chambers, put a blade in her, plant the weapon in one of her rivals' rooms, and go back to bed. No one would be the wiser. In fact, Marcus had offered to dispose of the woman himself, but Menefer had insisted she could do this much on her own. He would suffer her pride and allow her to prove herself.
Marcus stood up and with a great shuddering sigh, he shifted; his human form engulfed in a shimmering cloud of black, there was silence for a heartbeat. Then the tell-tale flapping of wings and an onyx crow emerged, its eyes glowing a hellish red, and it perched on Menefer's hip. She turned a scathing eye on it and in her mind she could hear him laughing which only served to make her hate him more. The crow crooked its head and pecked at her waist, leaving two tiny bloody nips and she shooed him away and wiped at the blood with her hand. The crow left from the open terrace of her room and disappeared into the night. Menefer frowned at her wound, insignificant though it was, and tried to go back to sleep.
Menefer awoke abruptly, a scream frozen in her throat, as the memory of being cut down by the pharaoh's body guards assaulted her consciousness. She had never made it out of the queen's chambers that night; she had stumbled upon one of the other women from the harem as she'd slipped inside the huge gilded doors. A woman that had ironically befriended the queen some years back and the only one in the harem that the queen had never seen as a threat was poised over her lifeless body, bloody dagger in one hand and the victim's hair bunched in the other, the head held aloft so the throat was exposed, and the bed and queen were both bathed in copious amounts of blood. The arterial spray had missed the murderess and when Menefer opened her mouth to scream, she realized she was doomed.
This woman would certainly be believed before Menefer could even make a case for herself, as the entire palace was aware of the so-called bond she shared with the pharaoh's wife. A bone-chilling smile had spread across the woman's face when she saw her rival and before Menefer could get her bearings, the woman was opening her mouth to scream for the guards and Menefer was lunging at her, hoping to stop her before she could call out.
The lunge ended unexpectedly as Menefer lost her footing in the blood she hadn't seen on the marble floor and skidded into the woman-she had long ago forgotten her name-just as the guards rushed in and quickly but inaccurately assessed the situation.
The last thing she remembered was the cold bite of a blade slashing through her spine.
Menefer shuddered and wiped at her face with her palms, scrubbing the sleep away and willing that memory back into the dark recesses of her subconscious. She needed to get up and start preparing for Ciel's ritual. Her hand clasped at the carnelian pendant and she wondered for the umpteenth time when this magic would run out. She dared not remove the pendant-she'd worn it every day for over a millenia, after all. No matter that most of that millenia was spent buried somewhere in the Egyptian sands... But there was no doubt in her mind that Marcus' last gift to her was the reason she was breathing at that moment.
She pushed the unpleasant thoughts from her mind and climbed out of her plush cocoon. Some questions were better left unanswered, she mused, going to the wardrobe and fishing out something appropriate to wear. Tying her hair back in a loose tail at the nape of her neck, she tossed on a pair of slacks and button-down that was decidedly not her own. The desire to look for her own clothing eluded her at that moment, however, so she pulled the shirttail up to her waist and tied it in a knot, remedying the problem of length. It took her a few moments to get the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, but soon she was out the door and across the hallway in front of Ciel's room.
She lifted her hand to knock, but the door swung open as her hand descended and Menefer very nearly clocked poor Ciel right in the nose. He didn't bother with a reprimand, only leveled an annoyed gaze at the Egyptian and marched past, his burlap parcel of Voodoo ritual tucked safely under his arm.
She followed him into the dining room and watched as he unfolded the fabric holding all the items together. He flattened the parchment with the instructions out on the table top next to the items and pulled out the small bag of chili powder, the bath salts, and the single sage leaf. "Are you ready, Menefer?" he asked, turning and reaching out toward her, the bag of chili powder pinched between forefinger and thumb, held out before him as if it were poison.
"Yes, Ciel. We can begin." She took the bag and started for the front of the house. The first part of the ritual was to put the chili powder in the four corners of the house. Then she would bathe Ciel for the ritual with the purifying salts. He was still wearing the sachet of protective herbs and he would not be able to remove it until the end of the ritual, three days hence. Before Ciel retired for the evening, he would write his "wish" on the single sage leaf and place it under his pillow. The instructions stated that if within three days time, he dreamed that his wish had come true, he was to remove the sage leaf and continue with the ritual. If he did not, he was to remove the leaf and burn it.
Menefer went about the townhouse and dumped little piles of chili powder in the corners, then returned to the dining room and placed the bag with the other items. Ciel was already in the bathroom drawing the water for his purifying bath and she took the doll aside and went to get shears for his hair. He was none too thrilled with this part, but he would bear it, he had assured her.
She made her way into the bathroom with the shears, and setting them aside on the vanity, helped the young demon out of his nightshirt and into the tub. To her credit, she didn't gasp or make any exclamation regarding the branding on his side, for which he was eternally grateful. It was not a story he was willing to relate at that moment.
She poured half of the vial of salts into the hot water and swirled it around with her hand. The scent of mimosa filled the room as she sponged the water over Ciel, starting at the crown of his head and working her way down his shoulders and arms. He sat still, eyes closed, and Menefer wondered if he'd fallen asleep. When she'd finished with his torso, she retrieved the shears and clipped a lock of hair from the back of his head, careful to do it underneath his thick locks so the missing piece wouldn't be noticeable.
Leaving him to soak in the bath, she took the lock of hair back to the dining room and with a small strip of linen, secured his hair inside the abdomen of the doll, tying the scrap around its waist like a little sash. Satisfied with that, she returned to the bathroom and helped Ciel back out, wrapping him in a plush towel and waiting as he dried himself. She held his nightshirt aloft so he could slip back into it with ease and they made their way back to the dining room.
"All that's left is the sage leaf," he muttered, pulling himself into a seat at the table and waiting as Menefer fetched a pen from the study.
She returned within a moment and watched as he sat there, staring at the leaf, pen poised in the air; such determination on his face, there was a deep groove between his eyebrows.
"I don't know what to write," he admitted after several long minutes. "I know what I want, but I'm not certain how I should phrase it... I am loathe to admit this, but I'm terrified that this will backfire in some way..."
"That is a logical fear. Magic should not be taken lightly and there is always the possibility that something can go wrong, even with the most experienced of users. I know that is not something you wish to hear this late in the game, Ciel, but it is good you are wary."
The boy demon leveled his gaze at the Egyptian and at first she thought he meant to scold her, but after a moment, he nodded, and turning his attention back to the sage leaf, he penned out his request. To grow up.
He reckoned there were many ways any request he penned could result in some catastrophe, so he kept his wish simple to err on the side of caution. If there would be any magical backlash, he decided, he would burn that bridge when they got there.