#cloudia phantomhive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tothelasthoursofmylife · 5 months

Text

8th Anniversary!

And it's still going on! I'm still writing it!!! With every passing year, I am rather glad (and surprised by myself) that I am still writing it and that I still love to write Watchdog of the Queen. At the same time, I cannot help but think/compare how much time has passed vs how much progress I've made with this story so far orz but I keep going, even if slowly, so that's something at least! And thank you so much for (still) reading this fanfic, even if updates are slow. Sorry for that!

No new update today. However, when I started writing WotQ, I was a teen with time/energy and far too many (often dumb) ideas. For many, I wrote the first chapter or the first few chapters and then shelved them, never to see the light of day - until today! If anyone's interested in some old, terrible Cloudia/Undertaker fic starters, they're under the cut. (They are posted as I left them.)

------------------------------------------------------------

The Princess

I am a fan of The Selection series by Kiera Cass. I reread The Heir and The Crown earlier this year and I loved them more than when I initially read them. Obviously, I had to think of a spoof of it. Cloudia having her own Selection, with Cedric (and Milton and Kamden (rip) and some others; this was an AU of WotQ, not just another Cloudia/Undertaker fanfic...) amongst the candidates. The notes file was last edited in 2016; the first chapter below in 2017. Very obviously based on The Heir. Just worse. (Why tf didn't I even change the kingdom's name??? I even made a cover edit, rip)

The kingdom of Illéa had been reigned by born kings for a long time now. No matter if there was a girl born before a boy, the boy would become crown prince upon his birth and thus obtain the privilege to someday become king.

However, sometimes times changed.

The current king, King Simon, was an only child who had married a woman who had given birth to an only child too ‒ me, Princess Cloudia. And despite their efforts, I had always stayed an only child. Therefore, I couldn’t be overruled by a younger brother, and thus it was me who was to be the ruler someday.

Me, Princess Cloudia, the first queen to hold the title on her own.

The fact that after all these years a girl would ascend the throne wasn’t very pleasant for the Royal advisers. After all, such a case had never happened before. But knowing that they couldn’t change this fact even though they badly wanted to, they did their best to convince my father, the King, that I needed intense training ‒ an even more intense training than the one he had received as a young prince. Wanting to support my talents and making it able for me to be the best I would ever be, Father had agreed. And from that day on, I was tormented by the adviser’s ridiculous lessons and teachings.

Fearing that I could fail to be queen, they let me undergo a dreadful training. However, they had never imagined that I would learn so fast and surpass my teachers in a very short time.

I was Princess Cloudia Phantomhive, the genius, the prodigy. No one was as powerful as I was.

***

I was peacefully reading in the small forest in the Palace’s garden when Lisa Greene, my maid, approached me, and for some reason I had the fear that something incredibly bad would happen today.

“Princess Cloudia,” Lisa said after she had curtsied in front of me. “Your parents, the King and the Queen, want to speak to you in private.”

***

When I entered my father’s office, I knew that something was entirely wrong. Still, I sat down at the table and remained calm.

“Cloudia, how are you? We haven’t seen you since breakfast,” King Simon asked. Unlike his daughter and wife, Simon stood beside the window.

“I am fine. Also because you would have never summoned me here just to ask me how I was doing, I guess this is just something for you to avoid the topic you actually want to speak of.” Cloudia leaned back, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Don’t beat around the bush, Father, and tell me straightaway why I’m here.”

Simon sighed. “It is your fault, Penny, that she is such a bold girl,” he mumbled to his wife.

“Well, you could have chosen one of the other thirty-four Selected girls, Simon,” Queen Penelope replied with a soft smile on her lips.

Simon walked away from the window and positioned himself behind his wife’s chair, grabbing the backrest. “Thanks, Penny. These were exactly the right words.”

Cloudia frowned. “What are you talking about, Father?”

The King swallowed. He looked uneasy. “Well, Cloudie... as you know, the situation between us and the British Empire has sharpened lately. We are still trying to negotiate with them as best as we can, but if we do not manage to defuse the situation...” He swallowed again. “Our country’s people are feeling uneasy, suspecting that something is wrong. But we cannot allow them to know about our current situation ‒ it would just cause a huge panic all over the country. However, with our people feeling uneasy and suspicious, we cannot properly negotiate with the British Empire, and thus we cannot defuse the situation.”

“I know about our relation with the British Empire,” Cloudia said. “And I know about our people being uneasy, but why did you summoned me here? Just to tell me something I have already known?”

Penelope and Simon exchanged a look.

“Well, Cloudia...” Simon started again, his voice a little bit shaky. “You know how your mother and I met, and you know that holding a Selection for the future sovereign to find their consort is a tradition in this country...”

Cloudia’s eyes widened in the moment she understood why she was here.

No.

“No,” she said aloud. “No, no, no! I am not going to have a Selection! And definitely not because we have to distract our people somehow so that we can calmly negotiate with the British Empire!”

“Cloudie, dear, just listen...”

“No!” Cloudia raised up from her chair. “You cannot do that to me!”

“Sooner or later you would have to hold a Selection anyway,” Penelope stated. “Just because you are going to be the first Royal-born queen of this country does not mean that you can skip this country’s traditions.”

Cloudia clenched her fists. “I know that, Mother. But I am not ready to marry now. I am just sixteen. I cannot do that now.”

“But you do not have to marry straightaway after the end of the Selection, Cloudia. We would wait until you’re older.”

“But I also don’t want to settle on some stranger now! And what if... what if I just don’t find anyone suitable among these boys? Do I have to bound myself to someone I despise to all eternity?”

“There will be thirty-five boys, Cloudia. The Selection has worked so many times now ‒ why shouldn’t it work on you?”

Cloudia crossed her arms in front of her chest again. “Just because you two are basically a fairy tale doesn’t mean that I will find myself in one too.”

“And what about the kings and queens before us? They all fell in love during a Selection.”

“And what if they actually didn’t? What if they had to marry someone just because they were obliged to pick anyone at the end of the Selection, even though they didn’t like any of them? What if all we know about the previous Selections is a lie?”

“Now you are being ridiculous,” Penelope pointed out.

“I am not being ridiculous. I am being rational.”

The Queen leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. “Cloudia. We had planned to hold your Selection after you turned eighteen, but think about our situation... If we don’t distract our people and they find out about our unfortunate situation, we wouldn’t have to deal with problems outside of our borders, but also inside them. It wouldn’t benefit our negotiations.” Her gaze softened. “Please, Cloudie, we wouldn’t hold your Selection so early if we had the option to avoid it. During a Selection, the mood of our country’s people was always at its best ‒ like when you were born or your father and I were married. And we need something now which can lift their mood, Cloudie. There just isn’t something more effective than a Selection.”

Cloudia sighed.

Being a princess, especially one who was also the heir, was sometimes quite annoying.

“Very well... but I will only do it under two conditions: One, I want the Selected to be able to leave on their own accord. Two, if I simply cannot find anyone suitable during my Selection, I want to have the freedom to end it without me becoming engaged to someone.”

Penelope chuckled. “No, we cannot allow your second condition. You would eliminate all of the boys on the very first day if we did.”

“And what if I promise to let the Selection run for at least three to four months?”

Penelope exchanged a look with Simon who had started to look awfully uneasy and had not said anything for a while now. “Very well,” he silently said in the end. “We will do it like you have suggested it. We will announce your Selection during the next Report.”

-------------------------------------------------------

The Amazing Grim Reaper

... A uhm, recap series for between the arcs, with fourth-wall-breaking commentary from Cedric and Cloudia. I wrote three chapters for that and started the fourth and fifth. I thought of "alternate chapter titles" and even made edits of the chapter covers. The recaps were meant to be drawn, I think, and that's what (thankfully!!) doomed them. They were all last edited in 2016, and below is the first chapter. Yikes.

Cloudia: I did not seduce anyone!

Cedric: *laughs* Of course you did, Countess! Shall I remind you what you said to our all-time favourite Lord Parrish? *imitating Cloudia´s voice* “You´re not that bad yourself, Lord. Your footwork is exquisite.”

Cloudia: *scowls at him* I guess that you need better glasses as you have obviously over-read this: “I wasn´t lying ‒ I found his footwork was as exquisite as the appetizers given out at this party.”

Cedric: I don´t understand how this should help you. After all, this sentence only strengthens the fact that you fell head over heels in love with Parrish and tried to seduce him. You are comparing him to food after all! Exquisite food!

Cloudia: I was not done! “I wasn´t lying ‒ I found his footwork was as exquisite as the appetizers given out at this party. Fairly, the man who dared to call himself a cook and prepared these abnormalities should be hanged immediately. I had to speak with the host, Baron Charles Worthington, about this when everything was over.” That´s the whole passage! I compared Parrish´s footwork to terrible food! How can that be evidence that I was in love with him?

Cedric: You´re a strange person, Countess. Perhaps this was the nicest comparison someone like you could think of. Also, Parrish could be a masochist or something in that direction and thus actually like being compared to terrible food.

Cloudia: Why am I even talking to you?

Cedric: *ignores her* Besides, I have more evidence that you were seducing him, Countess! Listen: “However, I have to admit that I haven´t danced for quite a while now, and I´m totally exhausted and heated up due to this instance. May you accompany me outside to get some fresh air?” Am I right in my assumption that you have said these exact words in January 1847, Countess Cloudia Phantomhive?

Cloudia: What exactly is so seducing about these words?

Cedric: Answer my question, defendant!

Cloudia: First, I am not a defendant. Second, now answer mine or you will never get any of Armstrong´s sweets again.

Cedric: That´s just cruel. Also, it´s seducing because you were saying that that you were “heated up” and wanted to go outside with Parrish. Alone.

Cloudia: Have passage like “We walked down the street, and I listened to his boring chatter. He was speaking of his company all the time. But I had to play my role, so I stayed polite, smiled and laughed at the right times, even though I was scowling inside.” or “She met his eyes, while her face showed clear disgust.” become totally irrelevant now?

Cedric: Yes.

Cloudia: ... You´re not supposed to answer it.

Cedric: But I did because “yes” is the one and only correct answer to this question. Besides, you´re forgetting this: “Lord Ronan Parrish was the reason why I had come to this boring, dull party all the way from my comfortable, quiet and orderly mansion in the countryside.” I guess this case is closed now.

Cloudia: ... Parrish was the reason why I went there because I was ordered by the Queen to exterminate him!

Cedric: You mean she ordered you “to find and marry him”? You know how much of a shipper the Queen is. After all, she sent us both to Wales once. Also, I said that this case is closed, Countess. I, Judge Cedric Kristopher Rossdale, name defendant Countess Cloudia Phantomhive to be-

Cloudia: Objection! I stabbed Parrish! I murdered him! If I had been in love with him, why would I have stabbed him?

Cedric: Because you were so disgusted with the thought that someone was able to touch the softest part of your little dark heart that you killed him.

Cloudia: I can see why the other Reapers don´t like you.

Cedric: Once again: I, Judge Cedric Kristopher Rossdale, name defendant Countess Cloudia Phantomhive to be... guilty!

Cloudia: *sigh* Also, I don´t think that you can call Ronan Parrish a “poor man.” He maltreated children and let them die in his factories like they´re nothing.

Cedric: I know but what if even though he hated children, he loved animals and was one of the main donators for a little zoo which has to close now?

Cloudia: I don´t even know if you´re serious or not.

Cedric: He could have been a very nice person apart from this thing. But we will never know because you have erased him from earth!

Cloudia: *rolls her eyes* You´re being ridiculous, Undertaker.

Cedric: I am not! You´re just being insensitive! Ronan Parrish could have been the nicest guy on the entire planet ‒ who just happened to like mistreating children.

Cloudia: You really want to die, don´t you?

Cedric: I mean ‒ what if he had been framed? What if he knew nothing of these kids?

Cloudia: I checked all the evidence to make sure that it was really Parrish who was behind everything ‒ and he was. Now, leave me alone. *turns to the audience* I will break this off before Undertaker can continue behaving like a moron. *Cedric yells something in the back* I apologise for his behaviour. Apparently, his mother dropped him as a baby and thus his brain is a bit damaged. Let´s just hope that the (irresponsible) writer does not let him take over the story again.

--------------------------------------------------------

Ciel timeline chapters

This side fic (!) to WotQ had an actual title, but I'm holding on to it for now because maybe, maybe, really very maybe, I will revive this project. Not as extensively as I had planned initially, just something small and short (and this time, I would mean it!!). But that would only be for the far future. Until then, here's the first chapter from 2017. (I only wrote that, a bit of the 2nd, and a few snippets...)

Chapter One: The Gallery of the Dead

“There, Phantoms were trapped in drawings.”

INTO THE ABYSS ARC

Countryside, England, United Kingdom ‒ October 1889

It was awfully silent when Sieglinde Sullivan woke up. The darkness of the sky, when she glimpsed out of the window by her bed, told her that it was still night and day was not about to come in the next couple of hours.

Sighing, Sieglinde let herself fall back into her bed and hugged her blanket. She closed her eyes, but when sleep would not come, she turned and turned around in her bed, trying to find a position comfortable enough that she would fall asleep again, and ultimately kicking her blanket down. Accepting that she was unable to go back to sleep right now, Sieglinde grabbed her crutches and left her bedroom to take a walk in the spacious Phantomhive Manor.

During the day, the manor was filled with all kinds of noise: explosions coming from the kitchen, screaming, Ciel´s annoyed sighs, the sound of porcelain breaking, crying, Tanaka’s “Ho ho,” the sound of people hysterically running back and forth. During the day, Phantomhive Manor gleamed with life, but right now, the manor seemed to have died. The clattering of Sieglinde’s crutches pierced through this eerie silence.

It was hard to explore Phantomhive Manor during the day as someone would always bother you with something or as something would always come up which would distract you from your actual plans. But now, Sieglinde was able to enter rooms she had never seen before, and walk through corridors she had not known before. And, eventually, she entered one of the oddest rooms of all Phantomhive Manor.

The Gallery was located in the back area of the manor, an area nobody usually entered. But despite no light except the moonlight illuminating the room, Sieglinde was already captivated by the Gallery’s beauty: Chandeliers, more beautiful, more delicate and elegant than the chandeliers in the other rooms, hung from the ceiling. The ground was pitch black but the places which were touched by the light glittered, indicating that there was more to the blackness than initially thought. The faint white patterns on the pale golden walls shimmered silvery in the moonlight – and so did the hair of the boy standing all alone in this room.

Ciel Phantomhive seemed like a ghost in the way he stood unmoving in front of one of the many drawings – surreal and out of place –, and Sieglinde almost believed that she had simply imagined his presence, but when she closed and opened her eyes again, Ciel was still there.

Slowly, Sieglinde moved towards him, the sound of her crutches tearing at her ears. And while she walked, she glimpsed at some of the drawings – all of them bearing the sad, serious faces of people long dead and long forgotten.

When she reached Ciel´s side, she waited for him to move, to turn his face to her and say something, but when Ciel kept staring at the drawing in front of him like he was under a spell, Sieglinde positioned herself right next to him and did so as well.

The drawing showed three people: two men, and one woman. The woman was sitting on a chair which looked so regal that it could almost be called a throne, and the two men stood behind her – one left, one right. Even with this poor light quality, Sieglinde could clearly see the woman’s beauty. Her dark hair, her porcelain skin, her glowing eyes. The woman in the picture shone with confidence and strength, and the smile on her face reminded Sieglinde of one of Ciel’s vicious smiles. She was the centre of the picture, stole all attention from the two men in the background like a queen.

“Who is she?” Sieglinde whispered, not daring to speak louder.

“My grandmother – Cloudia Phantomhive,” Ciel answered after a long pause, and turned away from the drawing. “And now, let us get out of here.”

------------------------------------------------------------

Unrelated to WotQ but Cloudia/Undertaker stories:

Itamae Phantomhive

I was procrastinating from writing a chapter for WotQ (I cannot remember which one it was; I'm sure I was procrastinating from uni stuff too) by thinking of something idiotic (modern sushi shop AU: The Phantomhives run a sushi shop as a "front" to gather information. Their clientele are mainly criminals and shady people, and they don't know they're the Watchdog family. Only Cloudia can't cook for shit, so she just hires Tanaka when he comes to kill her). I wrote two chapters and a bit of the third and then I forced myself to pull the brakes and post the story on AO3. It stayed up for about 24h hours, got no or maybe one hit, and then I deleted it. From 2018.

Chapter One: Itadakimasu

After her father's death, Cloudia Phantomhive inherited the Watchdog duty—and the Phantomhive family's sushi restaurant. Unfortunately, she was only ever trained in the art of killing, not in the art of sushi.

Struggling to run the restaurant, not to accidentally poison her criminal clientele, and be accepted into the (criminal) culinary world, Cloudia finds fortune in the oddest of ways: through an assassination attempt.

The funeral parlour was dark and dusty when Cloudia Phantomhive stepped inside, and she already regretted choosing it just because it was so close to work. She closed the door behind her and turned on the lights – and a few weak lights looking like candles came to life, exposing rows of coffins, numerous skulls, loose bones lying around.

Well done, Cloudia, you have chosen the funeral parlour of a weirdo.

“Is anyone there?” Cloudia said but nobody replied and appeared. Instead, she heard laughter seemingly coming from everywhere, seemingly coming from one of the coffins.

Cloudia took a deep breath, cursing herself for not checking this place first and potentially endangering herself, before she pricked up her ears and knocked against the coffins to find out from which one the laughter was coming from. And when she finally found the right coffin, Cloudia tore it open and found the strangest looking man she had ever seen inside it. He had long grey hair which fell into his eyes, and he wore old-fashioned black clothes, which were too large for him, and a compatible hat.

“You found me!” he said and giggled, stepping out of the coffin and wandering around the room before sitting down on a large desk made of dark wood.

“You have to be the new Countess of Phantomhive,” said the man. “I have already awaited you.”

“Of course,” Cloudia replied. “We had an appointment after all.”

He grinned. “Please take a seat, Countess Phantomhive.”

She frowned. “And where?”

He gesticulated towards the coffins on the ground. “As you have checked them, you should know that they are empty. For now, at least.”

Cloudia sat down, and the man held an opened casket, from which bone-shaped biscuits reached out, out to her. “Do you want some, Countess Phantomhive?”

“No, thanks. And ‘Miss Phantomhive’ or even just ‘Cloudia’ is fine. You don’t have to be so awfully formal. After all, nobody really cares about old noble titles nowadays anyway – don’t you think so, Mr…?”

“Undertaker,” the man said.

“You’re an undertaker and your name is… Undertaker?”

Undertaker smiled. “Indeed.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep in the last week, so, please excuse me if I put this too bluntly, but are you shitting on me right now?”

“Of course, not, Countess Phantomhive,” he replied with no sarcasm in his voice. Cloudia wasn’t quite sure how she should feel about it.

Cloudia rubbed her eyes. “Very well, Mr Undertaker…”

“Just ‘Undertaker’ is enough.”

Then just ‘Cloudia’ should be as well. She sighed. “Very well, Undertaker. How are the preparations for my father’s funeral going?” she asked, clutching her hands together in her lap.

“Splendidly,” Undertaker answered, taking a bite off one of his biscuits. “As soon the late Earl is returned by the police, the funeral will be held.”

She took a deep breath. “No complications?”

“No.”

“No further questions?”

“No.”

Cloudia took another deep breath before taking her bag and standing up. “Then – it was nice to finally meet you, Undertaker.”

He put away the casket and tilted his head. “You came here just to ask a few questions you could have asked on the phone as well?”

I just had to go outside. “I just wanted to be here if you needed my help with anything,” Cloudia answered, smiling. “And now, I have to go again. Goodbye, Undertaker.”

***

London, just like every big city she guessed, was a noisy place. And even though it wasn’t her first time in London, Cloudia flinched when she stepped out of the funeral parlour and was met with all that noise. There were so many people, so many things to see – so much life, so much movement –, and Cloudia wondered when, if at all, she would get accustomed it. London was so much different than the little town by Phantomhive Manor where she grew up after all.

Cloudia put on her earphones to shut herself off the world a bit and kept on walking. Her mother, the last Countess of Phantomhive, had died when she had been very young, and instead of letting his daughter live with him at the family’s London townhouse, Cloudia’s father had decided that she was to continue living at Phantomhive Manor with only a few servants to look after her. It wasn’t because her father didn’t love her – it was because he had wanted to keep her away as much as possible from the world he frequented. He had wanted to protect her even if it meant that they could only see each other a couple of times a year. This had been the sacrifice he had made; this had been the sacrifice he had accepted.

And now, he was dead.

When Cloudia arrived, she took off the earphones, threw them into her bag, and counted from ten downwards before she unlocked the restaurant’s door.

The Phantomhives were a special family.

Cloudia didn’t know when it had started but for what seemed like forever, the Phantomhives served the British Crown as Watchdogs. They governed the Underworld – and just like everything neither the Underworld nor the methods to oversee stayed the same.

Cloudia still wondered why the old methods had evolved into this: A sushi restaurant frequented by criminals and run by the very person who would bring them down. A sushi restaurant whose basement was a technological Eldorado.

The restaurant was located in a place known for its criminal activity, and the whole reasoning behind this façade was that nobody ever suspected the quiet cook or the waiter wandering around like a ghost as long as nobody was poisoned. But even then, suspicion didn’t often fall on the waiter or the cook but on the person facing you. After all, it was easier albeit riskier to put the poison into the tea yourself instead of bribing the waiter or exchanging the cook, especially if it was a place whose employees were well-known to the Underworld and the Underworld was well-known to the employees too. And the “Funtom Tetra” was such a place. The criminals frequenting London, or even Great Britain as a whole, knew that the Phantomhives were running this place, knew who was working here. They also knew that the Phantomhives would never do anything to lose their clientele by doing something as foolish as taking a side and engaging in any underground wars or selling information. And they were right, but only partially – the Phantomhives didn’t take the side of a criminal but of the Crown; they didn’t engage in underground wars, they brought them to an end; they didn’t sell information, they only used it to cleverly take them down before presenting the truth to the Queen.

But why, of all things, a sushi restaurant? Cloudia had once asked her father that question, and the only answer he had been able to give had been a shrug.

With a sigh, Cloudia turned on the lights and locked the door behind her, leaning against it and letting her gaze wander through the restaurant. She had loved her father – she still did. She understood why he had let her grow up safe and sound at the manor. But now, he was dead, and the family duty was left to her.

And she had no idea how to run a sushi restaurant.

Ah, isn’t that every girl’s dream?

----------------------------------------------------------------

Monsters of London

Another book series I like is Monsters of Verity. There are monsters in that book called Sunai that "collect" (or, rather, consume) souls after playing a melody, so I decided to replace the Grim Reapers' gardening tools with musical instruments too. I also thought of more monsters and decided to make Cloudia unable to walk, based on the meaning of her name: "lame, crippled." I actually still like this idea and think the prologue isn't that awfully written as the things above, but the fic is binned because I simply have no time. From 2018.

Prologue: Elegy

Countryside, England, United Kingdom – June 1838

Even after all those years, he was amazed how naturally the melody came to him when he hoisted the violin to his shoulder and touched the strings with the bow. He closed his eyes and let himself be fully absorbed by the song, swiftly moving the bow and adjusting his fingers on the strings. When he played, he felt completely calm and at ease. When he played, he felt complete. And every time, the song came to its end, he had to force himself not to start again, but to take down the bow, withdraw the violin from his shoulder, and open his eyes again to see what he had done.

Cedric Rosene had never been a man, had only ever been a monster wearing the face of one. When he played his melody, he could pretend to be what he only seemed to be, but when he opened his eyes, he was always confronted with what he was: A monster which lured souls out of bodies to collect them, to safely store them away before they were ready to go on.

His kind was called Sunai, but over the centuries, they had become better known as Grim Reapers in tales and legends.

Cedric knelt down next to the corpse whose soul had surfaced while he had played his song. Gently, he tapped his bow to the shining soul to collect it and start the Cinematic Record – a voiced-over record of the corpse’s life. When Cedric had collected a soul for the first time, his hands had shaken when he had taken up his violin and started his song. Of course, the melody had taken away his tension and the feeling of nausea, but they had returned the instance he had moved to hold the bow against the dead body. And afterwards, he had been plagued by what he did and what he saw of the person’s record. Back then, Cedric had been haunted at day and at night. Now, his bad thoughts were only woven into his dreams.

After he had finished, Cedric left the room and searched for more corpses to find, for more souls to claim. In the distance, he could hear the melodies of his fellow Reapers who had come with him to this place; even though they were far away, Cedric could still make out every note.

From what he had found out of the Cinematic Records, the lady of the household had fallen ill in the middle of April and had only managed to fight herself back to healthiness a few weeks ago. The sudden and drastic decrease in the mistress’ health had caused great panic and worry for her family and the other household members. Everyone had focused to nurse her out of this horrible state; nobody had even wasted a single thought on the Season which had begun shortly before she had become sick. However, after she had triumphed over the disease and returned to her former self, preparations had been started to move to London for the Season.

The preparations had included to send some servants ahead to their townhouse so that they could ready it for their master’s family. And then, someone had taken the current state of the manor – understaffed, hectic – to their advantage to sneak into it and silently murder everyone inside.

How sad, Cedric had thought after the first Cinematic Record had finished before his eyes. Such tragedy after such happiness.

He found his path through the manor, following the faint hum of souls resting beneath not-beating hearts and collecting each of them. Eventually, Cedric arrived in what seemed to be a salon. It must have been a stunning room, once upon a time, but now, part of the carpet and walls were stained with blood; now, part of the furniture laid knocked-over, sometimes even partially broken, on the ground. Glancing down at the maid’s and butler’s unmoving bodies, Cedric hoisted his violin back to his shoulders and began to play. He took the servants’ souls, but right before he left, he blinked at the wheelchair, sitting lonely but upright in the middle of the room. From what he had found out of the records, the daughter had been born with legs which would never carry her. The wheelchair was hers. When the first had noticed what was going on in the mansion, the butler and the maid had hurried to the salon to find the young lady, but they had only found the wheelchair. They hadn’t been able to search further for her.

Cedric tore his gaze away from the chair and scanned the room. A Sunai’s song made a person’s soul surface and glow, and this effect wasn’t limited to those dead or dying. He stilled when he saw a silver glow shining through the thin gap between the cupboard’s doors. The soul of a dying or dead person was always black, but the souls of the living could have every possible colour.

For a moment, Cedric played with the thought to open the cupboard and lift the girl out and back into the wheelchair. And, perhaps, he would have even done it – helping the girl, revealing himself to her against the rules – if one of his companions hadn’t called for him.

With one last glance at the cupboard, Cedric turned around and left the salon – following the notes hanging in the air to the others.

#bonus chapters #cloudia phantomhive #undertaker #8th anniversary nonsense!!#that's not all but many of the rest are either just ideas with nothing written at all #or very unfinished first chapters #for one I didn't even complete the first sentence yikes #hope you found some enjoyment in these very old pieces

9 notes · View notes