You never thought you'd find yourself in a situation so sinister. You'd seen your share of evils in the world, but now, you learned that was only the beginning. Over the edge of an abyss, that's where you stood, looking down, and unseen eyes, stared back, both pairs searching for the light trapped within bottomless darkness.

Hunting, searching, stalking, men were looking for you, and you now had no choice but to track them down too. It seemed that the same people somehow responsible for what happened to the Phantomhives were linked to you, and neither of your families could stop the awful inevitability that one day, their children would be caught up in a storm started long before anyone could do anything to prevent it. If it weren't confusing enough, you now knew one thing to be irrefutably accurate: the same force which had almost stolen your own drive, your own strength, the power-born courage you took on by name, a manifesto of the symbol which decorated your family crest, the lionhearted daughter of The Lion, himself, was the same evil, despicable demon who you now called your ally.

Aristocrats of Evil. That's what they were, and that's what you had to become. Perhaps that's why your father had always done his best to protect you. He didn't want to see the last of your innocence be taken without a reason.

What was that reason now? Where was he? You missed the man who raised you more than you could bear. You knew nothing, and you were afraid to ask. For the first time in as long as you could remember, you were scared you might not make it home, and a letter to your father would mean nothing. You had to face this alone- you knew you may just be the only person to get out of it all alive.

That same entity, the one who had linked your fates, was he to blame? Or was it that he just enjoyed the misery he had no hand in? It seemed as though mankind was plenty capable of committing most of the atrocities the Devil himself could preform without any inhuman, fantastic, or supernatural capacity at all. So why attribute everything to him?

You considered where you stood, how you ended up there, that morning- everything that happened. Three weeks had gone by, then three months, then you stopped counting the days, as the time passed slowly, yet rapidly all at once. You wondered when you'd get back home. You were no closer to finding out who killed Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive. All that time ago, when you watched Ciel as he roused -after you found out the truth- you couldn't do anything but stare. You weren't sure if he seemed strong, taking on the role of his family, the weight of the world, or weak, a little boy being lied to all along. You knew he was fearless, and in that way, you adored him. He was like you, except in one way. He did not hate this butler. He wasn't afraid of the demon in his service at all. In fact, he clung to him, reached for him like a father.

You wished you could have protected him somehow, your own family, your own power, taken him, shielded him from the choice he had to make alone. He was ten. He was too young to make such a grave decision. You were adopted. Your father would have gladly, without hesitation, helped this boy too. Why didn't anyone else- other than him?

There was one question you could not answer, no matter how hard you tried to understand. Why could a demon find Ciel Phantomhive, but not God? Not an angel? Nothing good? Nothing pure? If demons actually did prowl the earth in search of souls to steal, where were the emissaries of light, like the one who helped you? Surely a boy like him couldn't have been less innocent than you were. You had pride in your heart when you found the same exact thing. You got away. Why were you somehow still untouched, but he wasn't? Who makes the final decisions? What truly could the Devil do that the Lord couldn't? You once believed the idea of making a Faustian bargain was funny, an Elizabethan exhibition, an entertaining story, nothing real, and that God, though real enough, was just as unreliable. Yet, God proved himself to be on your side, and in that way, you were able to tell that demon that you'd always believed he was on everyone's, that despite your adolescent flouting of God, you never actually doubted the power of sin, and overcoming it. You realised all at once that it was the only way to exist as a member of your family. Eventually, honor meant not only getting out of A Lion's Den, it meant creating it, owning it. You were young, and the idea of pure, graceful, strength and glory in a world so cruel was too much sometimes. It wasn't that easy to understand, and the whole concept was riddled with paradoxes. Faith. It made no sense, and you had no one to ask that wouldn't lie to you, or whose mindset was already so twisted and manipulated, their truth, even one they believed in, would be unhelpful. You had no one to trust anymore.

The early hour was clear, as dawn slowly broke, the last bright star to defy the sunrise still proudly twinkled, and you looked on in apathy for the first time. It meant nothing. None of the religious stories which moved you recently made sense any more. The man with you could very well be the Morning Star himself. If that priest were here, he'd probably think him to be Lucifer. You weren't sure if that was overly dramatic or accurate. It's not like you knew his true name. You only knew the one bestowed upon him, after a dog, a sick homage to a beloved childhood pet. A plaything, an exchanging of toys. Innocence lost. The origin of evil. Defiling. Sick. Rotten. That's the only way you felt. Nothing made you happy in those early days of knowing the secrets of the Phantomhives, but eventually, you'd find joy again.

If you only knew how, then, on that bleak morning, you'd scream, cry, deny it, fight it with everything you had.

The smell of tea wafted in from below where you sat, staring up at the northern sky, wondering where your father could be, or the men looking for you had gone. You wanted to find out so much, but you didn't know how or where to begin. You fell into routine. Tried to distract yourself, avoiding contact with your superior when you could. When your back was turned, or you slept, whenever you absolutely sure you were alone, you weren't. He was there. Nothing got past the self-professed Phantomhive Butler. He knew about everything and anything going on in the estate. You weren't able to see him, watching you, lurking in the shadows, keeping track of your movements, making sure you didn't leave, like you were now his to tear apart as well, like you belonged to him of all things. Yet, you had made no choice to follow anyone but yourself, and despite your doubt, that made you untouchable to him or anything like him.

You were the one thing in that manor that was not within his grasp, and that infuriated him.

Doubt would be the perfect way to break your spirit. Yet, the resolution you had to stand by, that was immovable. A war of attrition was to come, and both of you were equally confident the other would never concede.

A fight between good and evil is what you saw it as, not the game it appeared to be to him.

Sebastian Michaelis was evil, and you wanted nothing to do with him, other than use what he could provide, to finish what you started, and he was not going to hurt you.

Still, nothing was there to stop him from trying. Now that you knew what he was, it was going to be more fun, as far as he was concerned. Yet, hurting you wasn't what intrigued him then. At that point, his sight was narrower, and all he had was one goal-

Trust.

Once he had that, he had everything.

"{Y/N}" You hated that false, gentle voice of his. You would not be phased. You knew the monster inside. It wouldn't fool you. No matter how much it fooled everyone else. "Would you come help me please?"

"Yes, Sebastian." You practically hissed, never witnessing the way he reacted each time you made it clear how much you despised him. "I'm on my way."

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{A/N: SO, since I myself have been going back over these chapters, I don't even like reading through them to remember where I left off because they're so long!!! I may actually get details wrong and this story was so well put together- I like it and the way I wrote it. There's a part I want to add later and it's going to be so worth continuing even at the snails pace I'm going at. So, as far as chapters go, I'm aiming to shorten them, and just make the story longer overall. Either way it will ultimately be the same length, it will just read more smoothly. I hope that'll make it easier to enjoy! I also may eventually, like wayyyy down the line, just space everything out as a whole, but then again, idk. I'm typically a "once it's posted I'm done with it" kinda person but we'll see. I hope you liked it! It was at least kinda shorter, wasn't it?"}

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