Broken Strings ❅ A Kuroshitsuji Fanfiction

String-less

She wished that day was just a dream.

Feet tearing through the cobblestone pavement, each bounce on her foot producing a short click. Heart racing, the young girl skipped past the shophouses lining the road. Every step forward would ensure a vaster view. A new horizon. And she wasn't going to let her own gasping breaths, or the strain in her calves from her ballet lesson earlier, hinder her. In her world, carriages and the clomping of hooves on the street becoming were just a blur. She was just picturing herself being a bird to fly away from all her duties when a familiar tune played loudly in her ears again.

London Bridge is falling down.
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down.
My fair lady.
Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay.
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.

Tangerine pigtails swished while she whirled around. Men and woman were chatting, bright smiles evident on their faces. Carriages on the street did not halt like it did when there was a traffic jam. Everyone else on the street doesn't seem to be affected by it. Almost as if she was the only one able to hear it. Puzzled by this, the girl's face pulled into a frown.

"Darcy!"

The girl's puzzled expression instantly turned into a bright smile. She knew this voice that called her name. His familiar pitch and octave in his voice. A teenage boy sprinted towards her, the bustling city crowd parting for him. Some were muttering rude remarks, others stared in a daze. But the girl didn't care. All her attention was fixated onto the boy who was crouching down in front of her, pulling her into a warm embrace. "Darcy!" He exclaimed, scanning her arms and legs for any signs of injuries, "I've been searching everywhere for you! Are you alright?"

Darcy glanced up into the boy's eyes. Both of them shared an identical shade of amethyst eyes and orange locks that resembled flares when the wind billows through it. She giggled, her eyes twinkling in amusement, "No, Brother."

"I won't ever let you out of my sight again," he sighed in relief.

Squawks sounding from across the street diverted Darcy's attention away. On the sidewalk across the road, a merchant had settled down with a cart of some birds trapped in cages. "Could we go there?" She tugged her brother's fist while pointing at the cart.

He gazed at the warm sun soon dipping behind the rows of shops. Threads of light weaved through the clouds, dyeing the heavens pink and orange. His pale face was aglow with the last few rays of the day.

"So I thought to myself: We should go now. Mother and Father would surely be worried," he said, smiling slightly. It was something he frequently said to her. She had always found it funny when her brother talks like that and would burst in peals of sweet, joyful, adorable laughter.

She was not laughing this time.

Instead, she pouted her lips and pulled on his shirt, "Pleaseee?"

Her brother sighed, he couldn't say no.

Taking silence as consent, the ten-year-old chirped excitedly and pulled her brother towards the cart. There were dozens of birds from different species all squeezed on the cart itself. Her head had hurt from just counting the number of birds there. Even so, this cart seemed to have breathed colour into the street with the birds' kaleidoscope - like feathers.

The merchant tending to it was none other than an old man. When she and her brother arrived to gape at the flock, the old man shifted his glasses to the bridge of his nose like he had recognised them. "Say, aren't you the famous puppeteer of the Mandalay family?"

Her brother stared in surprise at the old man before regaining his composure, "Yes, that is true indeed. I am Drossel Keinz."

Drossel had just joined the puppet industry, even when their parents have forbidden it. 'It's not respectable for a young man in the Keinz family to serve that sort of position,' they told him. Still, he had gone against their wishes and started to work for the Mandalay family about two months ago. After less than a week of working for the Mandalays, his fame had spread throughout London. Very soon, everyone across the country had heard of his name.