#ash landers

• Grell Sutcliffe - Red Stripe

• Joker - Orange stripe

• Finnian - Yellow stripe

• Othello - Green stripe

• Ciel Phantomhive - Blue stripe

• Gregory Violet - Purple stripe

• Alois Trancy - Intersex triangle thing

• Ash Landers - White stripe

• Ciel Phantomhive (dress disguise) - Pink stripe

• Lau - Light blue stripe

• Grell Sutcliffe (Butler disguise) - Brown stripe

The citadels of power teemed with figures draped in exquisite silk, each driven by an ambition that knew neither restraint nor conscience. Their voices wove falsehood and betrayal into every exchange until the halls themselves seemed saturated with deception, each conversation another thread in an endless tapestry of corruption.

He had witnessed more than his mind cared to endure, and the memory alone stirred a bitterness that rose into his throat. The white-clad angel drew a slow breath before his hands closed into fists, the leather tightening across his knuckles. What purpose did such creatures truly serve? They consumed whatever remained untainted, leaving ruin wherever they passed.

The world would be better without them.

He could make it so.

But then, the corridor stretched before him.

It led only one way.

Each step carried him farther from the voices that still lingered beyond the great hall until their laughter and hollow courtesies dissolved behind thick stone walls, leaving only the rhythm of his footsteps upon the polished floor. The tightness that had settled across his shoulders remained, though the anger that had threatened to consume him no longer pressed so fiercely against his ribs. It yielded little by little with every step that brought him nearer to the room waiting at the end of the corridor.

She was there.

The thought alone drew a slower breath from him.

Beyond those doors was the only place the world beyond these walls could not reach, where no carefully chosen words, smiling faces, or hidden intentions could follow him

His pace slowed. 

The door stood exactly where it always had, plain enough to escape another's notice, its polished surface marked only by the grain of the wood and the brass handle worn smooth by years of passing hands. He came to a stop before it, drawing a long breath that settled slowly within his chest before leaving him just as quietly.

His hand rose, fingers hovering over the handle. He let them drift past it, brushing the cool brass without taking hold. Instead, he stepped closer until his forehead rested lightly against the wood. The faint warmth lingering beneath its surface met his skin as he closed his eyes, and somewhere beyond the door her gentle humming reached him, softened by the walls until little remained beyond its melodious melody.

Another breath escaped him. The last of the anger he had carried through the corridor loosened its hold, leaving only the silence between them and the sound of her voice waiting on the other side. He had heard countless songs throughout his life, performed before kings and nobles by voices trained to perfection, yet none had ever settled over him the way hers did.  

He remembered the first time he had seen her.

She could not have been more than fifteen, standing near one of the great windows while the Queen's court swelled with conversation around her. Silk brushed against polished marble as nobles crossed the hall, their laughter rising and falling between carefully chosen words, yet she stood apart from them all. Her hands were folded neatly before her, her attention wandering beyond the glass whenever another conversation drifted too near, as though the gardens beyond the palace walls held far greater interest than the people surrounding her.

She had been sent there to learn the customs of the court.

It had never suited her.

Whenever someone addressed her, she answered with the courtesy expected of her station, though the smile that followed belonged to neither politics nor ambition. It appeared too easily, reached her eyes too readily, and disappeared just as quietly when the conversation passed. There was nothing guarded about her.

His gaze had returned to her more often than he cared to admit.

At first, he had mistaken it for curiosity.

The court had long since taught him that every smile concealed another purpose and every kindness carried its price, yet days became weeks, and weeks surrendered to months without that belief ever finding its way to her. She remained exactly as she had been the day he first saw her, untouched by the hunger that lingered within those halls, until he found himself watching not because he expected her to change, but because she never did.

Long before he understood what name to give it, he had already begun arranging the course of his days around the certainty that she would be there. And somewhere between those passing mornings and conversations, he had made a promise to himself without ever speaking it aloud.

Whatever became of that world beyond her door...

It would never reach her.

However, the years that followed brought no kindness. The court noticed her long before she noticed the court.

Suitors found their way to her one after another, each arriving beneath polished manners and carefully painted smiles, carrying gifts chosen to flatter. Ash watched them from across crowded halls and candlelit banquets, saying little while his eyes lingered upon the hands that reached too readily for hers, and the conversations that always seemed to end with another request for her company.

None remained for long.

A duke whose appetite for excess had become the subject of whispered conversation throughout the capital found his name ruined within the span of a fortnight, undone by rumours that spread more swiftly than he could silence them. A viscount whose attentions had grown difficult to ignore never returned after his carriage overturned upon the eastern road, leaving the court to mourn a tragedy before replacing him with another eager face.

Ash never questioned it. Each empty place at another banquet seemed only to affirm what he had long believed: that there were hands which had no right to reach for her, and that removing them demanded no regret.

But her purity came at a cost.

The Queen announced her engagement before the court with all the ceremony such an occasion demanded. Courtiers raised their glasses, musicians filled the hall with cheerful melodies, and voices drifted through the palace in warm congratulations. She accepted every blessing with the same gentle smile she offered to anyone who approached, thanking each noble in turn while the man chosen to stand beside her watched with satisfaction.

Ash remained where he stood.

He had heard enough of the man's name long before that evening. Too many wives had entered his household draped in white, only to leave it carried beneath the same colour. The court called each death an unfortunate misfortune. Others lowered their voices whenever the subject arose, allowing unfinished sentences and wary glances to speak where certainty could not.

The engagement lasted four days.

On the fifth morning, whispers had already begun their passage through the palace. Servants paused in the middle of their duties to exchange hurried words before moving on as though nothing had been said. Folded letters passed quietly from one hand to another. By noon, every corridor carried another version of the same story, each differing only in the details while arriving at the same conclusion. Before the day had reached its end, the Queen dissolved the engagement herself.

The nobleman vanished not long after. Some claimed he had abandoned the capital beneath the cover of darkness. Others spoke of an empty carriage discovered upon the northern road, its horses wandering home without their master. Ash never troubled himself with learning which account the court had finally chosen to believe.

The rumours did not end there, however, they found her instead.

Her name lingered upon lowered voices wherever she walked. Conversations faltered when she entered a room, only to begin again once she had passed beyond hearing. Servants made the sign of the cross against their chests. Noblemen who had once sought every opportunity to stand beside her now bowed from a careful distance before finding reason to continue elsewhere.

The Queen watched it all. 

When the summons came, he answered without delay.

The Queen entrusted her niece to his care without hesitation, placing the young woman beneath his protection as though there were no hands more worthy of bearing the responsibility. Ash bowed his head and accepted the charge without a word.

The first time she greeted him as her appointed guardian, she smiled before he had spoken a single word.

It was the same smile.

The same warmth that had first met him across the crowded halls of the palace remained in her eyes. She thanked him as though the duty had been a kindness offered rather than a burden placed upon his shoulders, and when he inclined his head in return, he found he could no longer remember what answer had left his lips. 

From that day onward, he rarely left her side. He walked beside her through the palace gardens while she wandered aimlessly among the flowerbeds, listened as she spoke of books she wished to read and distant places she longed to see, and remained outside her chamber until the candles within had long since burned low. She never asked where he disappeared to after nightfall, nor why unfamiliar names vanished from the court, and he never gave her reason to ask. So long as she continued to greet him with that same unguarded smile, the blood upon his hands remained his alone to bear.

It was during one of those afternoons, while they sat together beneath the shade of the gardens, that she turned to him without warning.

"Ash..." She hesitated. "Do you think I'm cursed?"

Her question lingered between them.

"No." His answer came, his voice scarcely louder than the breeze stirring the branches above them. "The world has never known what to do with something so untouched, my lady, but you are not cursed."

His gaze remained upon her.

"That much, I swear."

She searched his face in silence, before the faint crease between her brows gave way beneath a gentle smile.

She believed him.

The memory remained with him even now.

His forehead rested lightly against the door while the melody drifting from the room beyond settled over him once more. He drew a slow inhale, his hand closing around the brass handle before he turned it carefully enough that the hinges offered scarcely a sound.

The room lay open before him.

Moonlight poured through the tall window, spreading across the floor before climbing the chair where she sat. It caught the loose waves of her hair, drawing pale ribbons of silver through each strand, before resting across her folded hands and the soft line of her cheek. Beyond the glass, the palace gardens lay silent beneath the night, yet her gaze remained upon them.

Ash did not cross the threshold.

His fingers remained around the edge of the door, the wood pressing firmly into his palm while he watched her in silence.

She had never belonged to that court.

His breath left him slowly. Whatever name others might have given the feeling that settled within his chest each time he looked upon her no longer mattered. He only knew that he could not look away.

She turned then.

The movement drew his eyes at once.

Her gaze settled upon him, free of the guarded caution he had long since learned to expect from everyone else, and the faint smile that followed reached her eyes at once. She had never looked at him with suspicion. She accepted his presence as naturally as she accepted the morning light through her window.

"Ash."

Her voice carried gently across the room.

He stepped inside.

The hinges yielded without complaint before the door came to rest behind him.

"You're back."

She rose from the chair, smoothing the folds of her dress before crossing the room.

"You look exhausted."

"It is nothing, my lady."

She stopped before him.

Her hand found his, her fingers settling lightly against his glove, the gesture already familiar. Warmth reached him even through the leather, and he drew a shallow breath before he realized he had been holding it.

"Come," she said softly. "You need to rest."

He allowed her to guide his movements toward the chaise beside the window, her small, fragile hand resting securely inside his grasp. 

"Sit," she urged softly.

Ash lowered himself onto the chaise.

She knelt before him. Her fingers slipped through his hair before brushing the side of his face, lingering only long enough to smooth a loose strand behind his ear. Her eyes searched him for a moment.

"You spend so much time looking after me." A faint smile touched her lips. "But you never seem to look after yourself.

"You're too good to me."

The words settled deeper than they ever should have.

His hands had long since forgotten how many lives they had taken. Blood washed from steel as easily as rain from stone, yet none of it had ever reached her. She knew nothing of the roads he had walked after leaving her chambers, nor the things abandoned there before dawn.

She could never know.

"You're my everything..."

The confession escaped him before he thought to keep it.

"...I suppose that is why."

She made no sign that she had heard him.

Her attention remained upon the loose strands of hair she had drawn back into place, her fingertips passing lightly across his temple before falling away.

Ash said nothing more.

The silence spared him the burden of repeating the words.

But he meant every word.

And if anyone, anything, tried to take her from him, he would burn it all to the ground.