"Castles"
Elizabeth has a summer birthday, and Ciel has a winter one, and as a result there are four months out of the year that she is two years older than him instead of one. So it is, that Lizzy is ten and Ciel is eight this evening as they sit together on a stone bench in the Phantomhive hedge maze.
"Ciel," she asks, as the breeze ruffles her hair and makes the leaves whisper around them, "When we're grown up, how many children do you want to have?"
Ciel's brow furrows and he stares at her for a moment, before he says definitively,
"Two."
"Why two?"
At this, Ciel smiles.
"Well," he says, waving one hand at the sky as the other clutches the edge of the bench, "Everyone in our family has two, right? You and Edward, Mother and Auntie Ann, Father and your Mother."
"True," Lizzy muses as she gives him a smile. In the gathering dusk, his eyes are the precise color of the darkening sky.
"What do you want to name them?" she asks.
Now Ciel hesitates, turning to face her.
"What do you want them to be called?"
This, Lizzy can answer with feeling.
"Claudia," she says, "after Grandmother, for a girl. For middle names, either we draw from the family trees or just see what sounds good. If it's a boy…well, at least one of his names should be for Auntie Ann's husband. Don't you think?"
Ciel is looking at her in surprise.
"Y—yeah," he says, "That…I think that would be nice."
Around them, the hedges rustle and sigh, and the sun sinks below the horizon.
A/N: Because I started thinking about birthdays after the last chapter, and this is where my brain went. :)
Shoooould get back to Jack the Ripper next, though, unless I write something else that I think needs to come first. (Also! We've got a new house~! Now we just have to actually move...)
"Castles..." in the air