The Indignity of Mortality (Sebasclaude)

20. Claude

Sorry it's a little short - I"ll try to make the next one longer!

"Ciel!" A young girl, probably about Ciel's age flew in through the doors like a bullet and near enough tackled the Earl in question to the ground. "It's been so long!" She released Ciel from her death grip and bounced on her toes instead, gripping Ciel's hands in hers.
"It's only been two weeks..." Ciel replied, a little meekly.
"Exactly! Two weeks is ages," the girl, Elizabeth Midford presumably, replied, grinning. She waved to the carriage driver outside, before turning back to Ciel, then finally noticing myself and Alois.
"Oh, you've got Earl Trancy round. I don't think I've properly introduced myself - I'm Elizabeth Midford, but you can just call me Lizzy," she informed, curtsying. For a few seconds, I tried to guess what Alois was thinking in case he looked to be about to say anything horribly offensive, but instead he bowed, to my intense relief.
"I'm Alois Trancy." Alois didn't look entirely what one might call friendly, more like he was considering something.
"He's helping me on a case," Ciel explained.
"Oh, not another one of your horrible investigations... I don't want to hear anymore about it, they're not a cute thing to talk about at all, especially not with a lady."
"I can't say I was planning on it... Claude, can you bring the tea and biscuits into the living room?"
"Of course, my Lord," I replied with a bow. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd come back to - leaving Alois with Ciel's fianceé - but I hoped it wouldn't be too horrendous. Sebastian would doubtless chew me out about it. Still, there was nothing for it, so I headed over towards the kitchen where I was hoping something would already be made.

As soon as I stepped into the kitchen I spotted the tea-trolley full loaded up with biscuits and tea, as Hannah sat on the doorstep, watching the world outside, or perhaps Finnian (Finnian, I had gathered over breakfast, did not seem to know the difference between a rose and a dandelion). "You made biscuits?" Hannah turned to me and nodded.
"I must confess I had a glance over both your planners, especially Sebastian's - I don't think he's holding together very well, I can only assume he completely forgot there was a visitor today," Hannah explained, a little amused.
"I suspect you're right, I don't think he slept last night, though it doesn't make me like him any more," I replied grabbing the tea-trolley. "Thank you, though." Hannah smiled, her face softening.
"You're welcome. I know the both of you have a history, but try and be nice to him."
"Only when he's nice to me first." Hannah chuckled, before gazing out through the kitchen doorway again.
"You know he's thinking the same thing." I didn't reply.

I pushed the tea cart into the living room, only to see that Elizabeth and Alois were missing, leaving only a rather relieved looking Earl Phantomhive. "Did something happen?" Ciel looked up, as I poured out a cup of tea.
"Oh, I think Elizabeth and Alois are out in the gardens. Alois mentioned some game that involved running, and I elected not to participate." Fair enough really, though, given Alois and what I'd seen of Elizabeth I suspected running around would do them both good.
"Very well. Do you wish for me to wait here for their return?" Ciel shook his head.
"No, don't bother. I suspect they'll both be while. Though, if you could keep the tea warm and watch Finny whilst he's tending to the garden that would be much appreciated," Ciel stated, muttering the last part. I bowed.
"Of course, my Lord."

I managed to reach Finny just before he uprooted a yellow tulip. "Are you supposed to be getting rid of the tulips?" Finny blinked.
"That's a tulip?!" He yelped, quickly letting go of the stem. I closed my eyes and sighed.
"Are you supposed to be weeding?" Finny nodded.
"I spilled the weedkiller yesterday, and Mr Sebastian said it will be while until the new stuff arrives, so I've got to do it by hand." Something told me this was really for the best, goodness knows what Finny could do with weedkiller.
"Right, I'll tell which ones are the weeds. However, you can't just rip the stalk in two, or they'll only grow back - you need to get all the roots up." I pulled off my gloves and stuffed them in my pocket. "You need to grab the very bottom of the stem, pull gently, and wiggle it until it comes loose - don't force it," I instructed, demonstrating on a piece of Plantain, before chucking it into the bucket Finny had with him, that was home to a few unfortunate flowers. "Right, try on that Ground Elder." Near instantly the stalk snapped. "Just try on another plant."
It took about twelve tries, but eventually Finny took the roots up with the rest of the plant. I hadn't minded, it beat being stuck in doors doing laundry or something, and all I had to do was make sure Finny didn't pull up anything he wasn't supposed to. I could faintly hear and see Elizabeth and Alois charging about the lawn in the distance. Alois wasn't quite so bad when he was happy, and certainly when he was with someone else.
"I did it!" Finny cried from beside me, holding up a dandelion, roots and all, his eyes sparkling. I smiled slightly - I was unused to humans being that endearing.
"Well done. Now you've just go the rest of them to do..." Finny laughed, before something caught his eyes.
"Oh, there's a rabbit!" Finny yelped, getting to his feet. "They're so cute but they always run off..." I got up off the ground.
"Don't do this yourself," I instructed, before making my way towards the rabbit, until I was a few feet off, where I knelt and tapped the ground. The rabbit's ears and nose twitched - she was trying to work out if I was a threat, wether I smelt like a predator as well as looking like one, wether I was ready to pounce. She was a little hesitant, but she knew I wanted her to come over, and when I held out my hands to her, she sniffed them, before hopping onto them. Carefully, I picked her up, staying still until she knew it was okay, before walking over to Finny. Finny was in awe. He reached out to stroke her fur, and at first she wasn't sure if he was a threat or not, but she seemed to realise I wouldn't offer her up to someone who would hurt her.
"How do you do that?" Finny whispered, running his hand along the rabbit's back.
"Animals tend to like me. They have a language, it's merely different from ours; they speak through their body and you just have to listen."

Eventually, once Finny seemed confident that he knew weed from not weed, and I saw Elizabeth and Alois head inside, I went to head in as well. Both were laughing, carrying their shoes and covered in grass-stains. I had a bad feeling we would be receiving a strongly worded letter from Elizabeth's mother about that, but that was more Sebastian's problem than mine. The main thing was, no one had died, which was more than I could have hoped for. I gave both of them drinks, and Ciel had graciously left them both a few biscuits, which meant things ended on an unexpectedly high note. Evidently, Alois had Elizbeth had got on.