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OOC
Name: Chelsea
Contact: AIM: onepoisonedapple, LJ: makokitten; email: makokitten(at)gmail(dot)com
Age: 18
Current characters: N/A
IC
Name: Faustus, Claude.
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji II (anime)
History link: http://kuroshitsuji.wikia.com/wiki/Claude_Faustus
Age: While no age is specified in canon, it is safe to assume that Claude is hundreds-if not thousands-of years old. He is a demon, and is, therefore, veritably immortal, and he clearly has a long association with Sebastian Michaelis, another demon, who has canonically mentioned being acquainted with Egyptian pharaohs. Physically, Claude appears to be in his late twenties.
Canon point: Kuroshitsuji II, episode 8 - Claude has just killed Alois Trancy’s body and stored his soul in his family ring, when…
Personality: At first glance, Claude Faustus is the portrait of a mild-mannered unobtrusive Victorian-era butler. However, he is actually a skilled manipulator, and more callous and demonic in essence than any human could imagine.
When not in human form, Claude takes the shape of a spider. This should indicate his true intentions well enough. To truly ensnare Alois Trancy, his current master, Claude has been weaving a web for years. He answered Alois' summons for a fairy and proceeded to haunt his dreams, taunting and confusing him so that Alois, in the throes of desperation, would form a contract with him, even if it took a matter of months before actual terms of the contract were specified. Debatably, even the contract was self-serving; by feeding Alois certain information, Claude turned him against Sebastian Michaelis, another demon. Alois lapped this information up greedily, and Claude's goal became to make Sebastian suffer.
While this command seems fairly direct, Claude engages in dealings behind his master's back. Most notably, in canon, he actually forms a secret pact with Sebastian Michaelis, the demon he is hunting, with the ultimate aim of obtaining Ciel Phantomhive, Sebastian's charge (which, according to Alois, would be the way to make Sebastian suffer the most). To do this, he must enable Sebastian to frame Alois for the death of Ciel's parents, instilling a murderous rage within Ciel. In short, he is more than willing to throw Alois to the dogs. With Claude Faustus, the ends justify the means.
Claude Faustus plays Alois Trancy like a violin string. While he should be the servant to Alois' master, that has not been the arrangement for awhile, if it ever was at all. Claude twists Alois' phobias and complexes - some of which he cultivated personally - to make him predictable and easy to control, at least for a demon. He comforts Alois' fears to make Alois trust him, and encourages acts of sadism to season his soul. He can appear tender and sincere when he needs to. He plays on Alois’ love for fairytales from the beginning, appearing almost princely and then making constant reference to magical transposition. However, the give and take goes a little too far, and Alois Trancy makes the fatal mistake of falling in love.
For a demon, this is the equivalent of putting mayonnaise on a gourmet cake. Here, it is revealed how very little loyalty Claude Faustus actually harbors towards his master, and how very little patience he has for human emotion. Having had the chance to feel and later sample a more appetizing soul - Ciel's - Claude crafts an incredibly elegant scheme to obtain Ciel and cast off Alois like a worn-out pair of trousers. He unceremoniously kills his master and stores his soul in his family ring, then sets out to collect on his pact with Sebastian Michaelis. His intended plan seems to be to combine Ciel’s soul, over which he technically has no claim, with Alois’, and then devour them both.
In short, he is a genius, and a ruthless one at that.
Externally, Claude rarely betrays emotion. He occasionally appears surprised, and has smiled on no more than three occasions. He does, however, appear to have something of a competitive streak, as demonstrated by his many instances of engaging in some manner of competition with Sebastian Michaelis.
Claude is also one of the cruelest examples of the fact that nature has a sick sense of humor. Small songbirds have no issue with landing on his shoulder as he crochets, or pecking food practically out of his hands. He has no issue with crushing in children’s skulls in his own self-interest.
Powers/Abilities: Claude Faustus has two distinct sets of abilities.
Most obviously, as he is currently emulating a butler, he is skilled in anything domestic. His cooking is so good that it sends the Viscount of Druitt into a heightened state of ecstasy, and Alois brags about it to strangers. He can also create sculptures of valkyries out of cake batter, but that is neither here nor there. He has also shown to be skilled at origami, and he can crochet impossibly ornate doilies, possibly because of his connection to spiders.
As a demon, Claude is imbued with superhuman strength and speed as well as the ability to heal quickly. He has minor control over the elements (as shown when he battles Sebastian on the surface of a lake). However, even for a demon, he has unusual abilities. He possesses the ability to access legendary weapon, Laevatein, which, in a brilliant stroke of irony, was apparently forged by Loki. It is unknown how Claude obtained this weapon, nor is it ever likely to be explained. Laevatein means "Lie Stick" or "Wand of Destruction," and is a green, spear-like weapon which presumably has the ability to kill demons. Claude can also generate razor-sharp spider webs, which are so thin as to be invisible, so quickly that he even tricks another demon.
He can assume the form of a spider. Presumably, he also has a demon form, but this has not yet been revealed in canon.
Prose sample:
Claude can tell from the moment he enters the room that his master is feigning sleep. Alois’ breathing is far too shallow and uneven and, although he is keeping quite still, it is in a stiff, not relaxed, mockery of slumber. Even so, it is not the place of a butler to question his master’s quirks, and Claude simply sets the tea tray on the table and approaches Alois to rouse him.
As soon as Claude is near enough, Alois’ eyes open. He breaks into a sly grin-although only for an instant, and if Claude hadn’t had the eyes of a demon he wouldn’t have noticed-and, so quickly that the action must have been premeditated, snatches Claude’s glasses off of his face and darts out of bed, gleefully crying out, “Catch me! Catch me, Claude!”
Claude sighs, but he has his orders. He wears his glasses merely for show, so the lack of them does not slow him down or disorient him. In the part of his mind that is purely a butler’s mind, he wonders why his master insists on acting like this much of a child on occasion. The servants, Hannah and Thompson, Timber, and Canterbury, wouldn’t even blink at such behavior, Claude knows, but it would be a disgrace if Alois were to comport himself in such a way while guests were in residence at the estate.
He instinctively assumes that his master doesn’t want the game to end instantly, so he takes his time, running through the halls of the mansion at a quarter of his full speed. A few minutes pass before he corners Alois in the drawing room, and Alois, who has realized the only way he can go is up, stands barefoot on a red velvet footrest, his naked legs almost as pale as his white cotton nightshirt, the hand holding the glasses stretched high above his head. With the help of the footrest, he is Claude’s height, and, even though he is trapped, he looks triumphant, a mischievous smile still spread across his face, his blond hair disheveled and his cheeks lightly colored from the chase.
“Does it make you angry, Claude?” he taunts, the same question as always as he attempts to elicit some sort of emotion out of his butler.
Out of habit, Claude reaches to press his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, but they are not there, of course, since Alois has them pinched between his slim little fingers. “No,” he replies, his voice flat, because a good butler endures almost anything without complaint.
Alois’ grin doesn’t fade, though, and he stretches on his toes to hold the glasses a little higher up. His face only changes when Claude steps closer, but he doesn’t look angry or upset at Claude’s lack of real reaction. He raises his hand as far as he can, forcing the glasses farther out of Claude’s grasp so that Claude has to stand nose-to-nose with him to have them in his reach.
It is then that Claude truly takes in the peculiarity of his young master’s expression. Alois isn’t smiling anymore. He’s looking up at Claude through lowered, long, strangely dark lashes, and his pink lips are slightly parted, as if he is drawing a breath. He moistens them with his tongue and shifts forward just a little, so that he’s perched on the very edge of the footrest. They’re close enough now that Claude can feel Alois’ hipbones pressing against the front of his jacket, and Alois’ soft, warm, and very human breath on his cheek. Alois smells like mint and the cherry tart he had for dessert the day before, and he knows well that any human man would find the combination of senses-sight, touch, smell-appealing enough to be almost irresistible. He is not going to close the distance himself, though, and he stands, still as a statue, as if waiting for Claude to make his move.
Ah. So that was this morning’s game.
In the part of his mind that is purely a demon’s mind, a creature of sin, Claude Faustus is impressed by audacity of his master, the sinful things he does every day. However, he’s beginning to suspect his master’s motivations-but there is no time to be concerned right now. Besides, most of him is a butler for the moment, and he acts on orders. Without blinking, he takes his glasses out of Alois’ hand and replaces them in their proper position on his face.
“You should dress, master,” he says, this time successfully pushing them up on the bridge of his nose. “Breakfast will be served shortly.”
Alois looks annoyed now, and Claude thinks that he might throw something. Instead, without a word, he desists, making his own way back to his room and seating himself on the bed. He scowls while Claude dresses him and jiggles his foot impatiently, but Claude pays that no mind. When he is finished lacing Alois’ shoes, he stands and excuses himself to examine the progress of breakfast.
The routine antics of Alois would frustrate any normal butler beyond the point of insanity, and to that end they do annoy Claude slightly. He is also less than blind to Alois’ attempts to seduce him, although he assumes that the motivation behind those attempts is to again incite an emotional response, or, perhaps, to obtain the unobtainable. He does not want to consider the possibility of genuine affection on Alois’ part, because the very thought of it is revolting.
Claude has more patience than any mortal could ever know, so he endures it. Although he hungers for Alois, it isn’t in that way, and he expects that his master will learn that lesson the hard way, soon enough.
Links:
Reaction to episode 7: http://community.livejournal.com/dear_mun/26178908.html?thread=756567900#t756567900 and continued at http://impureandpure.livejournal.com/929.html
Reaction to episode 8: http://community.livejournal.com/dear_mun/26603961.html
Meeting with a younger Alois: http://community.livejournal.com/dear_mun/26688648.html?thread=775430280#t775430280