14/ forgiveness
Now the image of the bed, the butler and the boy was soft, like the reflection of light in mist, and as still as anything that has not been touched by a sudden gust of wind. The mansion in the depths of hell, which had for so long been lost in a deep uncertain slumber, was bathed in a dawnlight sky, the illusion of sunlight drifting into the silent room. And the two demons, naked beside the dark water, sat on either side of a game, neither touching the pieces by their hands. The vial that had so recently held deadly poison empty; nothing but a glass, ringing against the floor, with light.
And Ciel looked at Sebastian with wonder, still uncertain; while in return Sebastian smiled, small and careful and warm. Ciel had known assuredly that his death belonged to Sebastian. From the moment he, as a child of ten, had given it to the demon, that death had been his poison and his promise, equally. But this—? To be given, instead, life—
The long years past stretched behind him; and Ciel knew the corrosion of betrayal, and the bitter sting of salt-tears, and the hatred that had boiled like a worm, the hatred that had festered between them in the way that only true things can. But, beyond that, when the years had worn the edges of their hatred smooth, it was not forgetting that remained. Ciel was surprised to find it; a kind of peace. Everything Sebastian had done to him—everything they had made of each other—had become a place where, in meeting now, it was as though for the first time. And when he opened his mouth and said, in halting words, "Sebastian—I'm sorry—" it was only a fragment of the unutturable, which he felt; and then, shaking his head, Ciel corrected himself. "No. I… I'm glad. To be here, now, though I don't understand how, and more than that, I… I forgive you; I long since have. When we met, when you saved me… I had no knowledge of what would happen. What would become of me. I wanted nothing but a punishment, I craved oblivion in order to justify the hurt; vengeance and then nonexistence has been the greatest gift existence denies me ever, and yet, continually, you do nothing but save me. Perhaps if I had died then it would have been the ultimate kindness, and yet, if this is your selfishness—I can do nothing but surrender myself to that, and gladly."
The hurts still remained. The wounds, those old, aching things, did not dazzle and disappear; they did not even cease biting, when the air turned in a chill of cold. But they became less the end-all of existence than merely one facet; deep as they were. Strange; for so long Ciel had wondered himself a being made of hurt; for when at the age of ten his lifetime had shattered he had visioned himself created from the wreckage, nothing but a being made of hate. Without it, he had screamed, anguished at Angela's conjuring of his parents—he would be nothing; he had no self to go back to.
Oh, in the years since, how much has Ciel realized what it is to be nothing!
Without his title, without the bastion of humanity; when a creature exists only at the whim of others then, truly, can it be called nothing. And yet—! Despite it all, had he not persisted? Was he not, even now, something more than hatred? If Sebastian, who had been more deeply wronged by him than anyone, could continue to look at him and see something, was that not truly proof of Ciel's own existence?
Nothing!
Oh, what is it to be nothing! A curse? Or perhaps a boon! For just as surely, it was Sebastian's selfhood, his lack of nothingness, that he had been running from all this time, just as Ciel had been running from his life, toward the idea of a death like void: a complete absence; an inversion of soul, a violation.
To be faced, instead, with merely this: two imperfect creatures in the wreckage of an old game; two creatures facing each other in honesty. How much, more, can that be the terror beyond existence. The idea that, knowing all that he was made of, Ciel would still be here, still loved.
.
.
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