FicWad

Cube had thought he'd seen his mistress for the last time when she'd gone into the underworld, but less than a month after that he found her in the kitchen when he came down to start preparing breakfast before the sun rose. She was greatly changed, her hair flowing into the air and her body tattooed all over, but no amount of change would make him unable to recognize her. Even the way the air around her practically seemed to burn with demonic energy couldn't do that.

She looked at him shyly, a show of weakness that would have been an incredibly bad idea if Cube had like other demons. "I already swept the floor, and I was just about to start cleaning the counters," she said, like it was still perfectly normal for her to be at home with him.

"M-Mistress!" he stammered. "What are you doing here?"

"Is it really weird for me to be in my father's home?" she asked, biting her lip as she began scrubbing at the counters.

"You know what I mean, Mistress! You shouldn't be--"

She held up a hand and suddenly he couldn't have continued speaking if he'd wanted to. Such was the power she now held. "Please don't, Cube. I can't be here for very long. Let's not talk about that."

He thought that he should press her to talk about what had happened, but he couldn't bring himself to, and this time it had nothing to do with the control she could have over him. It was amazing that she was there at all, he didn't want to ruin what could be their last moments together by upsetting her. "I should go wake your father, Mistress. I know he'd want to see you."

"No!" She whirled around to face him and he was surprised to see her eyes glistening with tears, though he would have thought the ability to cry would have been taken from her with her transformation. "He can't see me like this, Cube. We are... I'm his enemy now. I never want him to see what I've become."

Cube sighed, and nodded. "As you wish, Mistress. I'm going to begin breakfast now. Would you like to help me?"

The corners of her lips turned up into the smallest smile, and she nodded. "I'd love to, Cube."

They worked side by side, as they had hundreds of times since they day she'd first come into his Master's house eight years before. To anyone watching it would almost seem like they could read each other's minds, as she reached for ingredients he needed before he even asked for them or he held out a pan for her to pour the eggs she was going to scramble in the moment she decided she'd beaten them enough. Even their breathing fell into synch as they worked silently together, demon butler and Princess of Darkness.

She didn't speak again until they were dishing out the finished food. As they were finishing she quietly said, "Come with me, Cube."

"Mistress... You know that I can't do that. I don't have a place in the the world of Darkness anymore."

"Yes you do!" She turned and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Maybe you didn't under Lucifon, but I'm in charge now and I won't let anyone do anything bad to you. /Please/, Cube."

Even entering exile so many years ago hadn't been as hard as shaking his head and denying her now. "I work for your father now, Mistress. I can't leave him, especially not now that... now that he'd be alone."

Her face twisted with pain, but she didn't look away from him to try hiding it. "I had no idea what would happen when I defeated Lucifon, Cube. I swear I didn't. I never wanted this; I hate it. But if you were with me I know I could stay myself, no matter what I need to do."

He reached up and removed her hands from his shoulders, but kept them held clasped between his own. "I always thought that I would do anything you asked of me, Mistress, but this I can't." Then softly, only realizing the truth in it as he said it, "...Not so long as your father is alive."

He breath stilled for a moment, then started again with a deep gasp. "I hope that he lives for a long time yet. A long time. But, after that?"

He squeezed her hands once, then released him. "Once my duties here are complete, I would gladly follow you anywhere, Mistress. Even to where I always swore I'd never return."

The tears that had threatened to spill earlier brimmed over now, and she rubbed hard at her face. "Oh, I can't... I can't do this now. The sun's about to come up, and I need to leave then."

"Here, Mistress. You can keep this to remember me by." He pulled a clean handkerchief out of her pocket, and held it out to her.

"Thank you, Cube," she said, taking it with another trembling smile, then suddenly stepping forward and pressing her mouth to his. It wasn't right for her body to be almost entirely bare against his, for the clothing under his hands where he carefully positioned them not to touch her skin for the sake of propriety to be leather and cold metal, for her hand against his neck to be tipped in sharp claws, but it was Olive and that was more than enough to make up for any amount of wrongness. "And that's to remember me by," she said quietly, then vanished as the first rays of the sun slipped over the horizon.