Swan Song • Sebastian Michaelis

07 | ever-changing

Pallid fingers drummed over the fabric of a skirt, rustling the free flowing fabric and apron as Aurora stumbled over her feet slightly, trying her hardest to keep pace with Sebastian's ever quickening pace. His strides seemed longer and more rushed, as if he was running from the Trancy butler and whatever words he was waiting to speak, rather than retaliating like Aurora assumed that he would. The butler always seemed it have a final say in any situation, what had made this one so different than all the others?

"Sebastian," Aurora tugged her arm free of his tight grip, bringing him to a stop near their table. His red eyes seemed to glaze over with an anger unbeknownst to the young maid as she placed one of her cups down and feverishly rubbed at where he had been holding to her. "Am I not allowed to socialize without your permission now?"

"I never said such a thing," he replied.

A dry chuckle escaped her lips. "Right, of course not – not directly as you would've liked to, but that's another matter to be dealt with later." Aurora glanced back in the direction that they come from and briefly scanned over the attendants for the golden eyed butler. "That butler did nothing but help me and I was about to leave him before you decided to intervene without purpose."

"You didn't need to talk with such a spider, Aurora."

"He helped me, Sebastian. I've said that once already, are you too incompetent to listen and read my lips?"

"I'm trying to help you, not hinder you," Sebastian took a small step forward, still reaming as calm and composed as ever. "You must learn to trust me more than you do now if we are to work together under the same roof, in accordance with one another. You are not in a stable state of mind right now because of the death of your former comrade-"

"Are you calling me insane?"

"Am I?"

Aurora's blood boiling as the smirk donning the butler's lips only further widened at the sight of her becoming more and angry and flustered toward him and his words. She took in an intake of breath and wrapped one of her hands around the outside of a lemonade glass, turning her attention away from Sebastian and to her master, finding that she would only continue to get worked up if they spoke more. Sebastian chuckled at her actions and her grip around the glass tightened. Her knuckles turned a burning white color, so much so that she feared she would crack the glass cup she was squeezing.

Despite trying to cool herself down, Aurora found it almost impossible to distance herself more than a few steps from the butler before he would catch on and pull her back into a stationary position right next to him. She didn't spot the other butler from the Trancy Estate for the rest of the evening, leaving her to assume that he had left with Earl Trancy shortly after their brief encounter earlier in the night.

Her head shook at the thought of the golden eyed man. Sebastian had gotten worked up so easily over him, what could have happened before that triggered something like that from him? He was always so calm and collected, but hostility had reigned over anything else right then.

He called Claude a spider, as if he was really such a thing. Aurora knew that she used to be called a spider, a black widow, but Sebastian never dared to call her that to her face from what he was capable of remembering. The last few days had been a large blur of preparations for this trip and swirling emotions that still weren't completely under her total control. Perhaps Sebastian had been correct to say that she was insane. She was unable work in accordance with him even to the simplest task it seemed, and their arguments would only to continue to escalate further from here, she assumed.

Sebastian didn't know how to handle his emotions. Or was it Aurora herself that was in the wrong? Was she really the problem?

Aurora silently followed behind Ciel at the end of the night, her hands neatly folded in front of her while onlookers kept their stares on the back of her head as she walked by. She first assumed that they would pay no mind to her after the ball went on longer, but the longer she stayed, it seemed the stares only lengthened and hardened. They had all heard that Ciel Phantomhive had captured the infamous Aurora Sterling and shut down her empire, or rather her father's original empire.