Yes, Lord Trancy (Ciel x Alois)

Chapter Twenty-Four: From the Ashes as if a Pheonix

WARNING: This chapter also contains graphic violence, so if your squeamish, I would not advise you read on. Thank you!

Ciel's POV

I was tired, the horse was tired, and it was getting dark. It had been about one o'clock when I had set off, and it was now roughly seven in the evening. I saw no choice other than to find somewhere to stay the night. Whoever had taken Alois had done a good job of hiding him.
After finding the nearest decent looking inn I booked a room and a stable for the horse.

I collapsed on the bed, dinner out of the question, shutting my eyes, frustration, guilt, defeat and shame laying atop my chest. I glared at the ceiling, though sleep did not come easily, and I was left lying awake for most of the night, and even when I did finally slip from the grasp of consciousness it was into lite, fitful, dream filled sleep.

I woke up for a final time, feeling possibly even more tired than I had felt last night. I left at the crack of dawn without breakfast, heading off into the woods to look for Alois. I was getting closer, I could tell, though this did nothing to ease my nerves.

Alois' POV and a a "time skip backwards" to the day Alois was kidnapped (sorry for all the POV swaps)

I woke up, bound to a tree, a gag already over my mouth with a pounding headache, as if someone was hitting me over and over the head with a hammer. I let out a muffled groan, my vision snapping back into focus. An all too familiar, female stared back at me, a small smirk dancing on her lips. She donned a maid's costume and an eye patch, her light violet hair falling around her shoulders. I knew all too well who she was.
"I'm supposing you forgot about me after Claude left," she sang, whilst I could only stay silent. "To think I used to care about you, I was even going to stay with you. Your brother was so much sweeter, he was content with what he was given, you could have made a contract with me, but you were far too busy morning over Claude, always wanting what you couldn't have," she carried on, starring absently off into the woods, her voice light and airy, though the words she spoke did not reflect her tone in the slightest.
"So, do you have some other poor soul serving you now? Are you still the clingy little brat you were when I left? I suppose you can't teach an old dog new tricks." Hannah turned to face me again, her eyes a bright red. She gave me an eerie smile, an idea clearly hitting her. "Alois, you know it's awfully rude to look at a woman like that," she stated in a sing-song voice.
I did not try to scream as she inserted two fingers into one of my eyes. I did not try to scream when I felt her nails scrape the back of my eye socket. I did not try to scream when I felt the blood trickle down my face like tears, and I did not try to scream as I watched Hannah wipe what remained of my eye of on a handkerchief. I deserved it, she hadn't. Then Ciel's words echoed through my brain, a distant memory, but a comforting one.
"Deserving something is nonsense. An action can be justified or unjustified but the whole concept of deserving something is incredibly childish. Saying that 'I didn't deserve that' is merely a slightly more mature way of saying 'it's not fair'."
I glared at her, and though tears slipped down my cheek and it felt like one side of my face was on fire, my gaze did not falter.
She then a picked a long, rope like, leather object off the ground. "Did you really think I was finished?" She snapped the whip once for affect, though I did not wince. I finally felt something I hadn't felt in so long. Something resembling confidence, something resembling pride, something resembling a reason to keep my head held high and to carry on. My whole life I had been a coward, a pitiful, pathetic, coward wallowing in my own grief and pain. Had any of it ever helped, no, no it hadn't.

A/N: Things are getting intense again! As some of you may know I'm having a snow day today, so I decided to write another chapter because I have been lazy about chapters recently. Hope you like and until next time my fellow nerds and otakus, serpent author out!🐉