As the wheels of the same sort of high end carriage that brought the Queen to the manor, the one you'd come to call your home, rolled over the entrance to the prison, you began to worry.
You were no stranger to violence. You'd seen countless atrocities in your life. As the daughter of a mercenary, being who you were, who you always loved to be, you'd seen it all, murder, death, crime, brutalities, you'd been a part of them, too. You'd even enjoyed most of it, fleeing your old home whenever you wanted, running through the streets where nothing and no one could stop you, until you found out that wasn't fully true. No matter how strong a person is, there will come a day when they meet someone or something that can stop them. It doesn't mean they can't start going again, however, and it doesn't mean whatever stopped them is stronger. That isn't always true, but it is fully true. Strength is subjective, and it comes from within. You always knew that to be the case, especially after you chose to live, just as Ciel did, and though how it happened was different in the extreme sense, it was the same individual who saved you. So, you'd learned a great many lessons in your young life, most importantly, how glad you were to simply be alive. Every day since your darkest hour had been exponentially brighter. You'd never feel that weak again. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. A cliche, no doubt, but an effective one. Still, the stronger you got, the more you began to see mercy as the strongest force of all.
What could stop that power? What would anything that could use forgiveness as an offensive weapon possibly have to fear?
That sort of back and forth, hatred and pity, what you knew before and after what you saw, and experienced personally, it made everything more complicated as you got closer and closer to the end of your prosecution.
Sure, you'd been in this life, you'd seen horrible things, but you'd never witnessed something like this, like what you were about to watch.
You'd never been to an execution before. Not an official one, a military one, or simply one in a prison, and certainly, absolutely not a royal one.
You crossed your arms, more so in an attempt to cover yourself, to protect whatever pain your heat somehow still bore for this creature from permitting you any sympathy towards him. You crossed your legs too, and began to tap your foot as it hung in the air.
Ciel was anxious as well, though not for the same reasons. He simply stared out at the moving cityscape, not saying a word as you rode on. It seemed like the sun would never shine on any of you again. His breathing was irregular, and he rested his hand on his chin, his elbow resting on the windowsill, his other arm in his waistcoat, as his leg was crossed in a similar fashion. He didn't tap his foot, though.
You were broke the silence.
"How much longer is it going to be?"
Ciel was lost in his thoughts so he didn't answer. You found it odd that you'd been the first one to talk. You expected him to have some of his former drive, to tell you and his butler exactly what to say and do when you got there. Even if the Queen was your family, he knew more than you did how to act around her. You'd proven to be a terrible example of a 'lady', let alone a lady of the court. He was supposed to spare you some embarrassment, but neither of you really cared, and so you both let it pass.
Now that you were here, though, you began to fret. Ciel was evidently nervous, too. Sebastian on the other hand, was positively delighted. "Getting impatient, are we?"
"No." Your response came out cold, but as you made eye contact briefly with Ciel, your expression was hard to read. "No of course that's not..." your voice trailed off as you stopped tapping your foot and folded your arms more tightly around you.
Sebastian merely smiled and crossed his legs so he was in the same position as you and Ciel. This was fun for him. It had to be. When was the last time he'd eaten? He had been waiting for this day longer than Ceil ever could. Dinner and a show. Ciel, on the other hand, was clearly not as happy or cheerily expectant of what was to come.
It was apparent why one of the men with you was so happy and the other was so miserable. You were scared more than anything else. Scared, angry, confused and ultimately, sad.
Ciel inhaled and let out a long, drawn out sigh as the carriage began to slow. You closed your eyes as you thought over why you were suddenly so despondent.
For one, Sebastian's elation over this whole thing bothered you. Despite his energy, his nearly adolescent behaviour, you saw nothing cute or childish about him. He seemed evil, cruel and manic, and the worst part of it all, was that this was an incredibly human kind of meanness. He was acting like so many of them were. Your peers. He didn't stand out. He fit right in.
That brought out another concern. You knew what he was, and over the course of all the years you'd spent with him, you met so many people that acted and had actually done things worthy of calling demonic themselves! The man you'd captured was awful, and sick, but none of these aristocrats were innocent. While you were pretty solidly sure a great deal of them had not sold their souls like Ciel had, you wondered if that would have even mattered to them.
Would their fates have even changed if they had? Was there a chance for paradise for those determined to remain Hellbound?
That may just have been the bottom line for you that night. You'd lived in this world all your life, and despite everything you'd experienced, you wanted to believe, and still did, that there was beauty within it, light somewhere deep in the darkness, and that what you were doing, how you'd act, that you could show people that small window of hope.
You had before, and deep down you knew it. There was beauty in forgiveness, but not everyone wanted to see it.
The man who you were about to witness die for his sins, he was one of the worst, most despicable people on the planet, but what would leave you heartbroken by the end of the night was that he never once wanted to believe in anything other than evil.
The hardest truth you ever had to face was one which you would deny for the rest of your life. It was the only lie you ever told, let alone to yourself. It can't be that way. People don't want to be condemned. They can't be excited about the prospect of going to Hell. People don't do bad things for the sake of doing bad things! There has to be a reason for what they're doing that makes them think their crimes are justified. Every villain is a hero in his own mind, right? Their motivation can't just be that it's fun to be bad. That wasn't true! No. Never. That could never ever be true, but it was. He was never sorry for what he did. He was having a ball, and he was livid when it ended early. He was only sorry he got caught.
Some people just didn't want to be forgiven. They didn't want to be saved, or helped, or loved, or redeemed, because they had no idea what they were really doing.
It crushed you to see people damn themselves unknowingly.
The coach began to halt, and you heard what sounded like a heated argument come from the carriage in front of yours. A quick rapping on the door meant you were here.
This was it. The private death of the Queen's grandson, before an audience of secret villains, their crimes forgotten with the spilling of his blood in the dead of night. After that, you'd have to say goodbye to a boy you were all but set on calling brother.
"Sebastian." Ciel stood. "Let's go."
"My Lord." With the same hand to his chest and a polite bow of his head, Sebastian led you both outside, past the gates to watch the execution.
People were lined up, and each man and woman had a place prepared for them. You didn't see yours, until you looked up. It was far from the entrance, and the closest one you could find to the Queen's seat herself. Ciel and Sebastian were to remain nearby, beside other relatives and closer friends of the Phantomhives. You wanted to be with them, but not because you had any reason to not be beside your own family, to watch the unraveling of it all, the death of your own flesh and blood.
Even if it was to yourself, and you'd never say a word that night, this would be the only occasion you'd call him father. Still, you were so so sorry it had to be this way. You hated how overused that line was, but the more you heard it, the more true it became.
What you were a part of was right, and just, since this man didn't feel any remorse, but it didn't feel like justice if it was useless damnation. The punishment for unrepentant sinners is clear, and nothing could make you feel less honourable than carrying out a sentence like this one.
You held your head high, before turning back. Once, quickly, as you were surrounded by people, you couldn't leave. Your place here mattered, but you didn't know if you'd see Ciel again. You didn't know what would happen at all after this, and you wanted to say goodbye.
You were stopped by Sebastian. He held up a hand, blocking you. You wanted to hit him, but he pulled you closer. It was the first time he'd touched you in seven years, and it immediately reminded you of everything that'd happened. You moved effortlessly toward him, like he was a magnet. What the fuck, {Y/N}? You mentally cursed yourself. Are you that physically starved? What, so you were a virgin for almost your entire adult life and now that you got it in once you immediately lose your mind when a man touches you? Shame on you! You're weak! You're stupid! You're vain! Oh wait...
"Don't do anything impulsive. I'm not going to, either. Wait for me, afterward. No one's getting torn apart tonight but the man who made you."
You didn't do anything impulsive but you sure said something impulsive. "God?"
You clearly weren't in any form of intimate embrace with a pretend servant, but a servant nonetheless in a very biased public setting, let alone one rife with judgment, but it still felt like he pulled away from one when you said that.
He smiled and nodded toward the centre of the courtyard, where the human element of your creation had been led in. A trumpet sounded, and before Sebastian lightly pushed you forward, indicating you needed to go to your place, you heard him say one last thing.
"I'm sorry."
You didn't have time to revel in the fact that there was beauty in forgiveness after all, as the one attendant probably least likely to consider the idea of repentance desirable than anyone there had proven your hopes real again as your stomach dropped and your breathing stopped. You could hear your heartbeat over the ringing in your ears as you had to force yourself toward your reserved spot.
They were leading him in, clearly restrained, his hands bound, his feet bound, but there was no block, no steps, no axe, no man in a black hood, and no one within several meters of him. None of the gates were closed. All four were wide open, and each of those watching had been grouped into clusters of four, minus the one in front of the main gate, closest to the Queen. Thankfully, Ciel and those he was close to were the second closest to where you stood, pretty much alone, except for several other members of families like yours, a small, triangular banner with a Lion fluttered from the lance of the guard to your right, the words victory through war spelled out in Latin. Several more small family crests decorated more swords, lances, armour and other ceremonial elements, all demonstrating exactly how much harm this one man had caused all these people. You looked up at the Queen. She acknowledged no one. Any traces of the kind old woman you'd met and conversed with on rare occasions were gone. She was terrifying and mighty.
You were terrified as well, and it's because you knew you'd misunderstood what his punishment would entail. He wasn't walking on his own, being led to kneel before a a dull blade, basket or none to catch his head. He was being carried, on the back of a tall, brown horse with coppery, thick hair, wild and tamed at the same time. Three smaller horses, clearly not bred like the one carrying the prisioner were being led beside him, as the men guiding them carried long heavy ropes, part of which slid ominously on the damp ground. The serpentine coils would soon be attached to his wrists and ankles. You knew what Sebastian had implied.
He wasn't going to beheaded.
This wasn't like the executions of the wives of your least favourite British king ever, Henry Tudor.
He wouldn't go out like Anne Boleyn or any English royal you read about before today.
He was going out like a traitor. He was going to be torn apart - literally.
How medieval.
You couldn't watch! You didn't want this! You didn't want to see this, but you had to. You couldn't run away. If this was good men did to bad men, then were there ever any good men?
You remembered that night with Sebastian, not the good part, the romantic part, but the petrifying, demonic part you wanted to forget or, to at least, disagree with.
Humans could never love God. Not wholeheartedly. Not if they got any pleasure out of something like this. Something evil.
You literally had to hold yourself up. You wrapped your arms around your chest so strongly it hurt you.
His sentence was read and he was condemned to die. You thought it was over, that everything would stop when he started to scream, when the others chimed in, you could look away, but it got worse.
Her Majesty turned to you, here, in front of everyone and thanked you, then she did the same to all the other families, the man crying as they turned to yell at him. You had always thought power would be desirable, the idea of being terrible, feared, and loved by many was attractive, but power frightened you then, as you looked at what it could do to people. That night, the Queen had all the power in the world, and you weren't envious at all. She turned to all of the secret lords she relied on, watchers in the dark, animals of every kind, and to each of them, no one in particular, she repeated words that made you realise why she and Ciel had both said them to you so confounding and cryptically before. It was as though she was commanding disciples.
"Don't let them get away with this!" Cheers drowned out the sound of the man in chains dissenting cries. She never acknowledged he was her own grandson. Perhaps she hoped none of them wanted her to. You noted she didn't openly acknowledge your ancestry either. She thanked you, your father, and then everyone's. No one stood out, which meant if this did have repercussions later, which it no doubt would, no one would be targeted then or singled out either by envious newly more powerful by comparison family heads now that there was a vacancy to fill. "This hardly ends here! We must not forget that united, we shall never be torn apart, for a land divided is no kingdom, there is no power in dissolution, in contention between us, but a united kingdom is power, and power will tear apart our enemies, even if they happen to be from within our hearts, our pride, our land." She nodded to the man holding the reign of the biggest horse. The others started to affix the hands and feet of the prisoner. You were able to breathe. They were skipping the hanging at least. Perhaps she did still hold a small place in her heart for her own relative down there, after all, just like she did for you. Now, you knew, your place was greater.
It was because of what you did, what you chose to do. You did the right thing in the end, and you'd do the right thing whenever you could. If your father in Heaven could see you now, as your the father of your birth met his end, he would encourage you to never doubt mankind's place in God's heart. Your life had been for Him, from its beginning to its end, your soul, your heart, had been good. That was more than enough. You chose to be good. People choose to be what they are. That's all the good and bad in the world, and you knew, and would show the world, that ideal did not solely apply to people at all.
Everyone has choices. We are who we choose to be. It was as though a moment of clarity, the same lighting bolt you'd sensed before had struck you again, and you looked away from the terror about to unfold, right as Her Majesty was finishing her final remark.
You wanted to see if he'd felt anything, too, if Sebastian might have a trace of the clearly present love he'd shown that night he was with you. He wasn't laughing like before, but he definitely didn't look horrified. You were discouraged, but not distraught. He was a demon. He couldn't not enjoy torture, but you were comforted in a small enough way for it to not even be noticeable if it weren't for the sensation you'd just experienced, as you observed he wasn't the happiest face there.
He really did seem human. You turned back, and couldn't prepare yourself any more than you'd been able to do when Ciel had first attacked him, but this time it wasn't so obvious. There were no signs of summoning, no smoke, fire, ironic cathedrals and holy statues, no laughing, not even from the once eager audience, nothing but silence before painful, agonising screams and the tearing sounds of bones gave way to the grunts of animals once more, steadily rising to a more human, then equine rancour.
Hoofbeats reminiscent of legends of The Devil Himself were the last thing you heard that night, but even after the end of the brutal death of the man who caused everything that had befallen you, Ciel, and the rest of your shared, rarely bonded, abominable world, were the Queen's final words to her grandson, and your father by birth, even if you never acknowledged it again.
May God have mercy on your soul!