You weren't tired. You were no stranger to insomnia, and when you were stressed, any true form of rest evaded you. You wished you could find it easy to sleep that night, but it was an impossibility.

You had nothing to do but sit in silence and worry. Despite how religious you always claimed to be, you never truly enjoyed the concept of getting on your knees to speak to anyone, even God. Yet now, you felt no shame in doing so.

Your brief time standing against the solid door behind you ended as you turned to the window, gazing into the sky, the little light you'd been so grateful for nearly completely disappearing in the night. You bowed your head, dropped to the floor, and launched into a prayer, muttering under your breath, as you couldn't simply orate in your head. You had no one to talk to, and if you kept everything inside you'd go insane. In spite of the fact that you fully expected to be overheard, even if you whispered as quietly as you could, you didn't consider that important at that moment. Though unbeknownst to you, it was nothing short of paramount.

Listening in on you had become a regular undertaking of Sebastian's, aside from all his other duties, it was one he freely elected to enjoy for himself. Typically, it only strengthened his ego, which was far too large to begin with, and he had no reason to believe he was anything less than perfect. Yet, after hearing you prostrate yourself before who you considered to be your true master, the one entity which would never speak to you, but you still exalted above all others, the pride which he lived by slowly devolved into envy. You loved something that would forever hate him, as far as he was concerned. How true such a fact was remained unclear to both of you. Neither of you understood how subjective, stubborn, and ultimately alike you were. In that moment, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt alone.

You were the one without anyone on your side, anyone there, in the flesh, tangible, accessible, but you still hadn't given up. You were prepared to die before you'd give in, and that was your choice, one that he didn't have any power over. What if he didn't get his way? He never lost. Ever. Not once. Not one human ever got away from him, and he'd beat countless other beings like him without a second thought.

You didn't matter to him. He said that himself and he didn't lie, not presently at least, but what you'd said before about lies being true if people believe them...that seemed almost painfully ironic, as he listened.

Dear...

God. The father. My father. Both of you.
I'm sorry for what I've done. I'm sorry for ever defying you and trying to make something of myself on my own. I'm sorry for not being there for you more. I love you father, and I don't ever want to know my real one. Whether it was my own Lion or the Lion in Your Word, that courage is what I need, and it is what I pray for now.

Give me strength to understand why I'm so afraid of those men, and why I'm less afraid of the literal apostate of Satan who still refuses to admit he almost killed me before. Don't let me believe he thinks I'm nothing. I can't be nothing if I'm being put through this great of a test. That's what they say, all of the faithful, that the Devil is a liar. But what if he believes his own lies? Does that make him a liar or not? I know I never speak about this much, but I do wonder why it seems that evil has such a hold on this world. I now know how real and incarnate demons are. Why haven't I seen an angel? Not one! I'm not questioning you of course, I just have to know, if you made everything, every part of the world is in your plan, and bad things happen all the time to the poor and the innocent, then you made them too, right? Do they have choices? If they do, and I don't want to believe this because if they do they'll choose what is best for them, the same as us, but if they do, would it hurt them to do the right thing? The one I know...he doesn't catch fire when a crucifix touches him, so clearly it can't be scientifically impossible to be near you, or your images, but is that part of the lie too? What is a lie to you? Are we so mired in our subjectivity that none of us, human or not, can truly understand what a lie even is?

Show me the truth, send me someone I can trust, and no matter how much I want to believe in the good in your world, make sure, and I will die before I let those men touch me or do what they want to, that if I do have sympathy for someone, let it be the monster who kills me. If that demon does affect me, get his way at all, I only want it to be in your will. The only way to avoid losing my soul would be to have him kill me.

If what happened in Ciel's testimony happens for real, then know I will never forsake you, but if I'm to say what they said, which I never want to, then send me not a demon, or an angel, but death himself.

If not, then I know I'll find some other way out of this. If I make it out alive, I know whoever helps me, even if it's just me, alone, will have the courage only you, my fathers, can give.

I don't always understand it, but I've seen It's power before, and it's worth dying for.

You are the only one trust, and my life is only yours to control.

Protect me, and prevent me from succumbing to human weaknesses. I'm not like those around me, that I know, and it usually makes me feel so unloved and unwanted, but I know it makes me strong, too.

I don't need saving. Even if history never reveals my story, and the true tale of my birth is lost to time, then let this be my final prayer.

If my hour comes early, and I die young, then help me remember that I was royalty both here and in your kingdom. That whole 'divine right' concept always seemed stupid to me. I can't laugh like I normally would at those words, but you know how little I ever cared about the right to rule. You don't control every kingdom, but you do control the only one that matters.

And that's the only one I want to be a part of. I'm a princess by birth, and by choice, but the life I led, and the one, even if not for much longer, I'm to lead here after, will be to glorify that which is right, and just and yours.

Victory through war can only be true if the war is righteous. Our family motto, our creed, that's what makes us able to use it the way we do. It's never for our might alone. We exist in this underworld, but we are not a part of it. It does not own us, nor will it ultimately kill us. If I'm to play with death, and the lives of others, no matter who's they are, human or not, let my actions be those of your daughter, a princess, warrior, sinner, and ultimately, one vain, ugly, stupid, naïve, weak, useless girl who means nothing to something who doesn't understand how much that applies to him as well.

It doesn't work the same though. That's what's truly the best part. You do care about him. You care about me, and even though I don't understand it, I know you care about everything you created. You can't hate, and even if you don't mind or interact with Satan, I know you somehow have the power to love him.

If you love me, and humans like me, you have to love them too, and I won't be able to do that like you, because I will never be as strong as you. I'm human, I'm limited, but in you, my soul, the one thing I have that he will never know the same way, I'm unbreakable. Demons don't have souls, that's why they take ours.

Everything they have is stolen. Those men aren't the real monsters here. He is. Evil as they may be, they can't take away anything eternal, and whatever doubt or fear or pain they cause me will end. I won't have my life fall into their hands only to be lost forever to a false prophet, a liar! Saving my body and protecting me temporarily means nothing if the ultimate end is the doors of paradise being forever out of both our reaches.

I will not have someone like Sebastian Michaelis, or whatever his real name is, drag me down with him when he's the one who will ultimately remain alone, forced to connive his way into any form of contact he has for all eternity.

No human will ever truly love someone like him. It's a sin to even consider doing so. So if you do have some plan, some sort of way to get me out of this, please help me to keep him out of it.

Forever.

You did find it somewhat odd that most of your prayer, even with all the terror and torment of the torture you listened to, was dedicated to protecting yourself from Sebastian. Even more curious was your perception of it all- the idea that whatever Ciel had described was bound to happen. It was as though you'd been gazing into a gypsy's crystal ball, given insight into something you could now avoid.

That was it. Maybe that was it! Perhaps what happened was some sort of warning. If that was to come, your fear was really legitimate, then it wasn't all for nothing. Nothing was a coincidence that happened to you. The demon you'd encountered, which you still believed was right outside your room somewhere, you'd met in an area riddled with images of what you feared from man, victims, women lost to hatred of themselves after enduring torture of their flesh, their corporal purity tainted unwillingly, that was enough to make you consider doubting God, but you'd only come to know God at all because you ran into what you should really fear only moments later. He'd given you a sign and now it made even more sense, the two sides of you, your humanity, your body and soul, they were both at risk, and they had been long before you even knew it.

After you'd been through your worst days, the first time you found peace in faith, and now, you saw clearly again what mattered, and almost instantly, you began to feel the courage you'd only just asked for.

God was accessible, but not in a way that was easy to understand, and that's why he was always, always good. You only found strength in him, with him, through him, when you grew stronger as well.

The Devil did things for you, meaning everything he did was really for him. He weakened you, and made you feel strong when he was doing the work, and then, he'd get you as a reward. Not your body, that'd be uninteresting, but he'd get your soul, and your service, and that would be eternal. You knew he did it, and those like him, for the same reason you did.

Both of you, no matter how little you understood it, were vying for the attention of the only true being to exist who's power was absolute.

As he listened, Sebastian began to question not one but several of the things he'd said to you earlier. You would talk to him soon, and he would not be made to stay out of your plans.

Especially not forever. You still didn't mean anything to him- at least he wanted to believe so. He stopped listening when he knew you weren't praying any longer, devoting his attention to the soul he'd already been so eager to enjoy.

Ciel Phantomhive's soul was more important than yours. That hadn't changed simply because you didn't want him to have it.

He remained convinced. Willingness, belief, all relativity was unimportant. The Soul of his Young Master, the one contracted to him, that was the only one of its kind. That was indisputable, and fully, wholly the truth.

He was determined to make it clear how little you meant to him. However, the reason for his efforts would only truly become clear after all Hell broke loose.

Neither of you lied to the other, but you saw each other as liars. The truth remained as it was long before you met. Fate was idiotic to both of you, but if you truly could understand what God did, you'd be overjoyed to know how wrong you were.

Had either of you been told so that night, you'd have killed any messenger who'd deliver such insulting news.

Even the Archangel Gabriel himself, or, more likely than not, though only one of you could be proud to say so...

...Especially the Archangel Gabriel.