How are we all feeling about Muffet? Is she cool yet? If your answer was yes then hold onto your hats because we haven't even gotten to the fun parts yet! I mean, not this chapter, but we're getting there. My baby is gonna fuck shit up!
The Gears of This Machine Are Turning
~O~
One must be cunning and wicked in this world
-Leo Tolstoy
~O~
The first thing Muffet did upon reaching the tent and ditching Black was tell Snake all about her little adventure – leaving out the part about them searching for the man in the photograph. Yes she had promised not to say anything to anyone, but in her defence Muffet didn't actually have a heart to swear on. Not to mention that, if they both even had a semblance of wisdom, they'd expect her to have told someone. Like her 'creator', she still snickered at that. After the encore, she decided to forgo riding on Snake's back, and instead hooked their arms together cheerily. "Will they cause any trouble? Says Emily. The one in black smells off, says Oscar."
"I think he tied up all the snakes in the spare tent and somehow managed to not get bitten," Muffet said, thinking quietly to herself. He couldn't be a snake charmer; no one could take on that many unknown snakes without getting hurt. At least one of them would be confused by the strange scent and attack.
Snake tensed at the thought of his snakes being hurt. "Are they alright? Says Emily."
"Yes, they're all fine. At least they should be." He had promised to untie them all, although she wasn't quite sure how he planned to do that. "If they're not, I promise to kick him in the head; and you know how hard I can kick." Though he didn't laugh, Muffet saw the stiff line of shoulders relax minutely. Snake took the bone-china hand of the arm closest to him, and began to fiddle with her fingers as they walked.
"Oi, lovebirds!" Dagger called to them. "Quit hanging back and go get changed! Dinner's waiting!"
"Don't be an ass, Dagger," Muffet yelled back, and then she blinked when Doll stopped in front of them holding something in her hand. Whatever it was, it had Dagger spooked, which was always a good thing. Muffet grinned widely. "Hi Doll! Whatcha got there?"
In response, Doll held up a black and orange snake. "This was loose outside the tents. I don't want a careless step to kill me."
"Aw, Wilde!" Muffet cooed at the snake as it coiled docilely around her shoulders. "You slipped off, didn't you? Find anything interesting?" The snake hissed in her ear, and she glanced at Snake. His expression didn't change. "Thanks Doll!"
Dagger groaned. "Please keep 'em shut up! See you later!" The three of them headed towards the changing tents, but Muffet swivelled her head around to see Doll ducking behind the crates and pulled out a very confused and unbalanced Smile. So he hadn't managed to escape before the first-tier members returned. Honestly, he was awful at this sneaking around business.
Dagger glanced in her direction, and squeaked when he saw her with her head the wrong way round. "Don't do that, Muffet! You know if freaks me out!" He complained. "What are you even looking at?" The knife thrower turned around but the two were already gone.
"Oh nothing," Muffet's grin hadn't left her face, and it only grew wider. She liked scaring Dagger, mostly because he was very easy to scare. "Just testing my joints. Say, where's Black's tent?"
Ciel stumbled into Sebastian's shared tent, half out of breath from running and avoiding the first-stringers. The demon looked up when he did. "You bastard," Ciel panted, "you knew I was still there when you freed the snakes, didn't you?"
Sebastian smiled beatifically. "Yes I did," he raised his hand to his chest, the very mocking picture of dutiful butler. "You did order me to return before the first-stringers and release them. Problem? What are you glaring for? Rest assured, my lord, I won't let you die while our contract holds. However, you may encounter some non-fatal suffering if you give the wrong orders. You knew as much. Every game needs its thrill," the demon smirked cruelly. "You're such an avid player, I assumed you shared my opinion."
The young boy gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Your game is in sickeningly bad taste, demon."
At this, Sebastian smiled, and it was almost as if the cruel beast had never reared its head. "You flatter me."
Ciel sighed and walked into the tent. It was cold outside, and his throat and chest hurt; likely from all the running. "Never mind that," he grumbled, "I found a letter in Joker's tent that mentioned my name. it had my rank, the location of my estate, and even a biographical sketch. The sender-"
"You there!"
"Ouch!" Ciel jumped back as the sharp blades of the scythe jabbed at his foot. Suit tapped the shallow line that separated the tent into two distinct regions.
"You're three centimetres into my territory," he informed curtly, then adjusted his glasses and glared at Ciel. "If the master cannot abide by our agreed-upon boundaries, he's as bad as his dog."
Ciel stared at the reaper, briefly wondering how someone could be so anal about anything, and then he exhaled loudly. The exhale turned into a cough. "Come on Sebastian, let's go outside."
"Certainly."
It felt colder outside than it had before, and the young boy hugged himself tighter even as he tried not to shiver. It was rarely ever a good thing to show weakness in front of one's servants, especially if that servant was a demon. Ciel coughed into his hand and grimaced. "The sender used the name 'Tom, the piper's son'."
"A Mother Goose character," Sebastian commented, recalling the tune that had been playing on their first day.
"Yes, though I don't know why." Ciel coughed again. It was getting harder to breathe in the cold night air. "The sealing wax showed a crest with a horse and the initial K." The same as the one Sebastian had seen on Beast's leg joint, and in the photograph.
The man nodded thoughtfully. "Signet rings are generally engraved with a motif and an initial that represent the bearer or the family. Which means that 'Tom the piper's son' has a coat of arms featuring a horse. Would a horse mean someone awarded a knighthood, or perhaps a soldier?"
The boy coughed again. "Not necessarily, but philanthropy is probably impossible without some degree of status." Another cough. His vision dulled faintly at the edges, but he shrugged it off. They were close to discovering something important. He stifled the next cough. "The heraldic authorities have all coats of arms in their registers. We have enough criteria to narrow it down so that however many they have-" here he interrupted himself with a hacking cough, "-you should be able to find the one."
Sebastian's eyes narrowed. Something was very wrong; the young master wasn't breathing right. He didn't sound like he had a cold though. The young boy took another deep breath; then he froze and then fell to his knees, hacking up a copious mouthful of thick mucus and saliva. "Young master!"
The last thing Ciel saw before passing out completely, was Sebastian's uncharacteristically worried expression, and Freckles calling out for him.
oOo
Muffet absolutely hated the doctor. She hated him so much that, were there not a lot of witnesses in the circus, she would probably have bludgeoned him to death by now. Knives were great and all, but sometimes a lady just wants the satisfaction that only wielding a heavy, blunt-force weapon can give you.
Anyway, she hated the doctor, which was why it was a testament to just how interested she was in Black and Smile that she was currently standing in the medical tent staring at the asthmatic little boy while bluntly ignoring the occasional creepy looks she was getting from the doctor. She'd been following Smile since he and Doll had separated, and had been there when the kid had collapsed in a puddle of what looked like mucus; she had then hopped off the top of the tent and pretended to pop round to the tent at the moment the doctor had declared that Smile was asthmatic.
"Asthma?" Black repeated, sounding genuinely worried, and nothing like the scary man that had let out snakes in the vicinity of a young child. "We've lived together three years, and I've never seen him have a fit like this."
The doctor consulted his notepad on the nearby table. "If he hasn't had a fit in three years, he may essentially be cured," he said. "But when patients are exposed to abrupt stress or chill, or if they catch a cold, they sometimes relapse."
"But he's caught colds before…" Muffet eyed Black out of the corner of her eyes, and wondered just what sort of game was being played.
"There were probably multiple triggers this time," the doctor explained. "And I hear he took a bath with our weight-lifting addicts? It's no wonder he caught a cold." Doll winced and looked away; clearly ashamed at the part she had unwittingly played in causing all of this.
The covers of the bed rustled, and Smile's eyes opened just a crack. "Wa…ter…" he croaked painfully, and Black hurried to his side with the little teapot full of water. The cool liquid poured into his mouth, aggravating his throat slightly. Once he'd drank as much as he could manage, Ciel fell back onto the bed, his breaths coming in shallow but laboured puffs.
The doctor leaned closer, and in the corner, Muffet made a face. "Smile, did you have a bad case of asthma as a young boy?" But Smile only stared up at the two men, eyes blurry and unseeing. He mumbled something nonsensical, a name, and then lapsed back into unconsciousness. The doctor sighed worriedly. "This is no good. His mind is muddled. We'll have to keep a sharp watch until the fever and coughing stop."
"I'll go get ice!" Doll ran from the tent, her eagerness to help any way she could born mainly from her guilt.
The doctor glanced at Sebastian. "What about you?"
"I'd like to stay and help in any way I can."
"Much obliged," he then turned to Muffet and smiled invitingly. It was the kind of smile he gave the other circus members to get him to trust him, but she knew there was something wrong about him, something sick and depraved and she did not wish to get involved with that. "And you, Ms. Muffet? Will you finally let me take a look at your joints?"
The puppet stared at him with barely hidden dislike, and narrowed her eyes. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you can look at my joints the day you manage to pry them off my body. Goodnight." With that, she pushed herself off the wall and walked out of the tent. Her bad mood dissipated once she was outside, and Muffet stretched joints she never needed to. This had been another interesting night, and the doll grinned widely at the night sky. She loved when things got interesting.
She caught Snake on his way to his tent, and cocked her head to the side. "Where have you been? Something exciting just happened."
The orange-copper snake around his shoulder hissed. "We were reporting to Joker, says Wordsworth," Snake replied. "What happened? Says Emily."
Muffet hummed thoughtfully for a second. If she told Snake all that she'd overheard from Black and Smile, he'd report to Joker as well. Unlike Muffet the snake-charmer was loyal to the circus members, and asking him to keep a secret would cause him to regard her with suspicion, and she didn't want that. Not only did she actually like Snake, but it might mean ending things early, and not saving the children.
"Muffet? Says Emily." The woman smiled as the red and black snake left Snake's shoulders and coiled around her own.
She smiled fondly at the black eyes and flickering tongue, and then she shrugged. "You'll probably hear all about this tomorrow, but it looks like Smile's got asthma. He's with the doctor right now."
"Asthma? Says Wordsworth," sounding faintly surprised in his gruff way.
She nodded. "Yeah, it looks like Doll accidentally spilled water on him this morning, and it's nearly wintertime. With all the snooping he did tonight, it's no wonder he got sick. Black's taking care of him."
Snake tilted his head to the side. "Does that mean they won't be doing anything suspicious for now? Says Wordsworth."
"Who knows? Anyway, we should go to bed, it's getting late. Oh, by the way, have you seen Beast?"
oOo
Sebastian patted the forehead of his young master with the damp rag left behind by the doctor. There was a bowl of cold water by his side, with fresh ice chips floating inside courtesy of Doll. Guilt was a hilariously human emotion, but it was a wonderful source of manipulation, and he wondered why more humans didn't utilise it more often.
His thoughts drifted to the doll-like creature, Ms. Muffet. He disliked that he couldn't sense her like he could sense any other living human. It was the reason why when he'd flown into the tent to hide Ciel from Beast, he hadn't realised she was right there in the shadows. He idly wondered who had made her, and why. It likely wasn't the doctor, she wouldn't hold him in such contempt if it was, and she'd at least have to visit him for check-ups. Not to mention there was something incredibly familiar about her…
There was motion from the body on the bed. The demon stared down at the pale face of his young master, and frowned when the boy began to cough again. Slowly, his eyes began to open. "S-Sebastian…"
At that moment, the entrance to the tent swung open. Sebastian stood up as the doctor rolled in. "How is he?" The man asked concernedly.
"He still seems poorly off," he reported dutifully. Humans were ridiculously fragile, and children were even more so.
"I thought as much," the doctor tutted, and wheeled himself over to a small chest of drawers."I just remembered that mint oil can help these fits…where did I put it…?" He began rummaging through the many bottles and vials there were apparently inside the shelves. Sebastian glanced back at Ciel, and was mildly surprised to see the young boy gesturing for him to come closer.
This is an order, he tapped onto Sebastian's outstretched palm, out of sight of the doctor. Go to the heraldic authorities and identify the man with the signet ring. The registers are in London and Edinburgh. If I move now, the doctor will make a fuss. Come fetch me in the morning.
The demon smirked and signed back, yes my lord. Finally, something to do.
He stepped out into the night air, noting the time. It was late, everyone should be asleep by now, and the puppet should have been powered down and put away at this time. He spoke mostly to himself, "I'll start with the closest-!" Suddenly, a sharp blade shot out of the darkness, forcing him back. Sebastian glared at the intruder with irritation. "You again? Well this won't do."
William stepped out, grimacing disdainfully at the creature before him, and clad in blue and white striped pyjamas. "Where are you going at this time of the night?" He asked, sliding his glasses up his nose. "I believe I told you not to wander about without your master."
"My master is indisposed at the moment, so I must do his errands." Sebastian straightened, smiling at the reaper though there was nothing friendly about it.
"Return to the tent at once," Suit snapped. "I cannot allow you to act independently." He began slicing at Sebastian, the body of his scythe shooting out and retracting quickly. "Small mistakes can lead to extreme overtime, you see." The scythe shot out again, and the reaper's eyes widened as the demon caught the blades in his gloved hands, preventing him from retracting it.
Sebastian inclined his head to the side, the perfect butler. "My apologies, but I have my duties as a butler," he said. "I cannot allow you to disturb my master's sleep, and you don't really want to cause a scene here, do you? How about you and I make a deal? If you grant me one hour of freedom, I'll swear never to eat a soul in your territory again. Just one hour."
"No thank you," William replied immediately, brows flattening. "Seducing your prey into darkness with sweet words," he yanked the blade out of Sebastian's grip, and whipped it to his side hard enough for the blood to splash onto the candlelit ground. "That is the demonic cliché."
"I was afraid you'd say no," Sebastian sighed, taking off the ruined glove and examining his bloodstained hand. "I suppose I'll have to explore other means."
Sebastian pls stop exploring other methods, please. It's just rude.