My Butler, His Master

20. Habiller

-20-

Habiller

"You were up in the middle of the night again," Ciel sighed, as the found the small child sleeping in a chair by the door of her arithmetic tutor's house. She looked up at him, eyes attempting to adjust to the light as she rubbed them feverishly.

"I wasn't," she insisted, before letting out a long yawn and letting her little head dip back into sleep for a short second, "I had a bad dream last night."

"Hmph," Ciel scoffed, kneeling down to fix her outfit that had become crumpled from her slump in the chair, "that's no excuse to fall asleep during your class. There's nothing for it, I'm going to have to quiz you on the way home."

Dahlia groaned, half asleep, as her butler pulled her up to her feet and straightened her out. Grasping her student case and her hand, and with a nod of regards to her tutor that was observing them with skepticism from the salon, they headed out into the street.

Along the way home, Ciel commenced asking his little charge complicated arithmetic equations, which she answered as she tagged alongside him, though after a couple questions, Dahlia refused to respond. Looking down, thinking either he had stumped her, or she had lost interest, Ciel noticed that the little girl's attentions were fixated elsewhere.

A massive group of people were jostling about and making so much commotion, it reminded him of a chicken farm. They were all focused on something heading down the opposite road, and he could barely make out over the heads of the people a mound covered by a thick canvas cloth. that was slowly moving onwards down a lane.

Clicking his tongue and wanting to avoid the cluster of chaos, Ciel tried to hug the wall of a storefront, though a man running by clipped him, forcing him to spin aside and relinquish his hold on Dahlia's hand. Following the man's back with a deadly glare, Ciel scoffed at the rudeness, before noticing that, at the first opportunity of freedom, Dahlia was heading towards the mass of bodies. Utterly annoyed, Ciel took off after her.

Spurred by a child's never ending curiosity, Dahlia pushed her way through the crowd towards the center of attention; a small troupe of people were pushing a set of carts through the city streets, some stopping to announce in multiple languages the marvels that the canvas kept hidden from prying eyes.

"It's a most amazing marvel! One that we hope the lovely city of Paris and all it's citizens will enjoy!" a massive man dressed in an elaborate royal purple coat declared with a heavy British accent, gesturing with his hands to accentuate his pitch.

"What is hidden beneath the cloth?" a man shouted from the legion of curious onlookers.

"Something so outstandingly delightful, the people of Paris will enjoy it for years to come!" the man announced, taking a deep bow, "It's a gift from the Queen of England herself, as a token of longevity, peace, and delight for the people of Paris, nay, France itself!

Dahlia looked beyond the man's outstretched hands at the cloth, and noticed that something was peeking out from beneath a fold. The promise of something 'outstandingly delightful' urged her to sneak a peek. Looking around her, she wormed her way through the crowd, until she was alongside the cart. Making sure that the man was distracted enough by his loud declarations of the anonymous 'miraculous thing', she reached over to lift the canvas a tiny bit, to catch a glimpse of what lay beneath.

A large, soulless black eye gazed up at her in a mass of milk.

Suddenly, a hand grasped ahold of hers, and she cried out, whirling around, before noticing that it belonged to a rather upset looking pale butler, who's cold sapphire eye was already communicating just how many more arithmetic equations were awaiting the rest of the day for her due to her antics.