In Which Finny Writes Fanfiction Without Breaking the Fourth Wall, a kuroshitsuji fanfic

In Which Finny Writes Fanfiction Without Breaking the Fourth Wall

Remember the book Finny was named after, Fenian Cycle? Finny has some issues with one of it's chapters. Non-crack.

Warning: the author has not read the real Fenian Cycle, only the story outlines.

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In Which Finny Reads a Book

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Even though he's thrilled to be there, Finny sometimes wonders what he's doing at the Phantomhive manor. He knows that he's technically there to garden, and the deeper reason he's there is to protect the place, but Finny still wonders why has these roles. When he was learning to read, the young master came up to him one day and handed him a book.

"It's Fenian Cycle." He'd said. "I was planning on giving you a copy once you knew enough to be able to understand most of it. It'll help you become literate if you have something to read every so often."

Usually, Finny spends his time off with the other servants. But ever since the young master gave him that book he's been reading it whenever he gets the chance. Early on, when Finny was still sounding out words out loud, Bard asked what he was doing.

"Why don't you read it out loud?" Bard asked, once Finny had explained. "You can read it every night, as a sort of bed-time story."

So he did, and it worked. The words became more and more clear each day, and Finny found that he could read the labels on the flowers and the weed-killers even better then before.

He still reads it every night. Even though he read through the entire book, and has half the stories memorized, Finny likes to go back and re-read the stories he was named for.

Fionn's adventures draw him in, and Finny finds himself imagining himself in the book. Like Finny, Fionn was far from perfect. He let his jealousy kill one of his friends, and in the end his greed destroyed him. Finny isn't too sure he'd ever want to become a king, the way Fionn was.

But at the same time Fionn did amazing things, like finding his place at the high court of the king (Finny is sure that even if he had a magic fish of his own, he'd never be able to pass those three tests). His favorite one is the story of Aillén, and how Fionn used a magic spear to kill the evil imp. Sebastian seems to like that one too, since he chuckled a little when Finny brought it up.

But the story Finny reads the most is the story of Sadbh (even though he, Bard and Meirin can't agree on how to pronounce her name). Finny thinks it's the saddest story, even sadder then the story of how Fionn died.

Finny didn't know why he feels this way, until the day the young master asked what he thought of the book, and in his haste (the young master hadn't asked about it before) he brought up that story.

"Really?" The young master had asked. "Why that one?"

"Because he failed." Finny tried to explain. The young master huffed.

"He failed again at the battle of Gabhra, only that time more people died then just one-"

"That's not it." Finny said in a rush. He backed down a bit when he realized that he'd interrupted, but the young master didn't say anything, so Finny went on.

"At the battle of Gabhra, all those people knew they might die." Finny says carefully. "But Fionn promised to protect Sadbh from the evil wizard,[1] she thought she'd be safe with him."

Hesitant, Finny added, "And even if she didn't, Sadbh deserved to be protected. She'd been through too much, and there was still so much goodness in her heart that… she…"

Finny struggled with his words, but the young master just nods in understanding. That night, Finny kept thinking about Sadbh, re-reading the story over and over to figure out what he'd meant.

On the one hand, Fionn had promised to protect his wife, and when she got turned into a deer, it meant he failed to keep his promise.

But at the same time, there's also the fact that Sadbh was supposed to be safe with Fionn. After everything she'd been through, she deserved to have a good life and be protected.

On the other hand, Sadbh owed Fionn her life, and she wanted to repay him by being a good wife. In that case, the story is sad because Sadbh was unable to keep repaying Fionn for saving her. The book said that Oisín's birth was Sadbh's way of repaying Fionn for the time they shared together. Finny thinks that Oisín was Sadbh's son too, and that she should have been allowed to help raise him as well.

Finny still thinks about that story, some nights when he flips through the pages, and wonders which reason is the one that makes him saddest to read the book.

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Meirin loves her glasses so much that she refuses to get a new pair. Finny understands that, he's pretty sure he loves his hat for the same reasons.

Meirin can't see without her glasses, so really, they should be more important to her then his hat is. But without the hat, anyone in the world can see number 12. And it's very important that Finny be Finnian, because he let number 12 die when he came to the mansion and dead things should stay dead. Dead with windowless rooms, with doctors who treat him and the other test results as though they're babies who can't possibly think for themselves, instead of babies who can grow into children, and then grow into adults.

But he also likes the hat because the young master gave it to him. Meirin feels the same way, he knows, because nobody ever believed in either of them until the young master did.

When he holds the hat, he remembers the day the young master gave it to him. He remembers that no matter what he's done or who he's been, there is someone out there who believes he can do better. Someone who treats him well, when nobody else ever has.

Finny has never had the chance to see how other people would treat him, and he's never asked anyone about these thoughts. But there's some part of Finny that doesn't believe he deserves this kind of patience, and that part tells him that nobody else would be kind enough to give it to him.

Finny had decided to protect the young master. No matter what happened, he would give up his life for the young master's.

In a way, he supposed he felt a little bit like Sadbh- in a debt so great she could never repay it. She stayed by the side of the man who rescued her, helping him in any way she could.

But Finnian knows that the young master is far from innocent. He may be nobility, but he's not as pure as Sadbh, and Finny knows he's done some bad things. Bard tests out the weapons that are secretly made in some of the back rooms of the Funtom factories, and the weed killer Finny himself uses was developed from a failed chemical weapon.

When he really thinks about it, Finny's happy that the young master works in the underground. Otherwise he might have given number 12 a job and sent him somewhere to work, but he wouldn't need Finny to be at the manor. How can you defend something that has no enemies to attack it?

Even so, Finny can't help but see the young master as good. Good enough to avoid killing unless he has to, good enough to look out for his people, good enough to be "chaste" (whatever that means, it was the only word in the book that everyone refused to explain to him. But if Sadbh was "chaste", surely it's a good thing to be?)[2]

So when master Siemens turned up dead, Finny couldn't stop himself from defending young master.

The moment the young master told him to back off, Finny knew that Lau was right. But he also knew that no matter what anyone else thought, master Siemens must have done something to deserve his death. He must have been really good at hiding his crimes, so the young master had no choice but to kill him.

Finnian doesn't quite understand the concept of "honor," but as far as he can tell it means that people say good things about you. He knows that the young master is always doing things he doesn't want to because he has to "protect the Phantomhive family's honor," and since he's the only Phantomhive left Finny supposes that honor is all his own. Every time Finny overhears him talking about it with Sebastian they always talk about what "people" will think. Finny doesn't know who these "people" are, but he knows that impressing them is important.

He decided to help protect the young master's honor in any way he could. He couldn't let master Lau keep accusing the young master of murder. Even if he was right, Finnian needed to make sure that nobody else would say such things.

But the young master was proven innocent in the end, and Sebastian died. Now Finny knows that it's alright (later Bard pointed out that Sebastian was probably never dead in the first place, he just pulled off some fancy trick to make it look like he was), but at the time he thought the butler was lost for good.

He stood up for the young master then, too. Nobody was closer to him then Sebastian, and Finny knew that his death would have hit the young master harder then anyone else. He wanted to comfort him, to tell him that it was alright. He wanted all of the other guests to shut up and think about how much their words must be hurting the young master.

That was another reason he loved his hat. The young master gave it to him as proof that Finny would always put his best effort into doing his job.

Nobody got away with hurting the young master. Finny wouldn't let them.

Finny realized he had that in common with Fionn: they both had someone so much better then them who they promised to protect. Sadbh was part fairy (which the book said was a good thing), chaste, and Fionn loved her. The young master is good, brilliant (which means smart, but more strongly), and honorable. Both are nobility (the good kind, not like master Siemens), both are beautiful, both are wise.

But there's one difference between Finnian and Fionn: Fionn failed to protect his wife, but Finny won't let himself fail to protect the young master.

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It was only after Snake had arrived that Finny realized the connection between himself and Fionn. Right after he figured it out, Finny thought about how he was going to do better.

"Don't be greedy," Finny muttered while he gathered roses, "but that only got him into trouble because he was a king. Sadbh got kidnapped because she didn't know how to cope without her husband. She waited outside for him, instead of inside."

"So he should have left home more often so she could learn how to live without him?" Finny wondered as he walked in through the back door. Snake was there to take the flowers, and he gave Finny a strange look.

"Who are you talking to? Says Bronte." Finny blinked, only just realizing that he'd been voicing his thoughts.

"I was thinking about a story." Finny explained.

"I see. Says Wilde."

Snake rarely talked, so Finny usually had to keep the conversations going. "The tale of Sadbh, from Fenian Cycle." He said while Snake put the flowers in a vase. "The young master gave me a copy of that book, and that story's one of my favorites."

"Oh." Snake said. He'd only been there for a few days, and was still getting used to everybody.

So three nights later, the next time the servants could afford to stay up an extra ten minutes before going to sleep, Finny brought the book out and promised to read it to Snake.

"Again? Don't you have any new books?" Bard just groaned and pulled a pillow over his head.

"You haven't heard this story, have you?" Finny asked Snake. Snake seemed nervous about being asked the question.

"I- uh- You don't have to- Emily says-"

"It's okay," Finny encouraged him, "I love reading it."

Snake protested a little, but he calmed down and just enjoyed the story eventually. Finny cuts around, jumping from Fionn's Rise straight to The tale of Sadbh. Then Snake goes away on the Campania for a little while, but when he comes back they've got enough time to read the rest of the book.

"You don't like that chapter very much, do you?" Snake asked, two nights before he was set to leave (the next night they would both be too tired to read).

"What?" Finny asked, "I love it. It's my favorite chapter."

"You look like you're intrigued by it, not like you actually like it. Says Dan." When Finny stared at him in confusion, Snake elaborated. "It fascinates you; even though you don't like it, there's something about that chapter that interests you. Says Goethe."

Finny wondered about that while they were gone. Sure, that story makes him sad, and sure, he thinks Fionn messed up. But if he didn't like it, he wouldn't read it so often, would he?

He told Bard about this problem, but it's Meirin who came up with a solution.

"Sometimes you do things you hate because they bother you and you wanna fix them." She explained. "Like, you can't stand the fact that they're wrong, so you keep going back because you always hope that it'll turn out alright."

"Fix them?" Finny asked, "But how do you fix a book?"

"I dunno," Meirin shrugged. "Maybe write a new one?"

"A new one?"

"A new ending. Like, maybe that hero of yours managed to track down the wizard that cursed her, and make him give up the girl. Or maybe he followed her scent for a dozen years, and at the end of it there she was, waiting for him."

Write a new story? Him? "Huh." Finny knows he isn't very smart. He couldn't write anything decent if his life depended on it.

"Who says it has to be decent?" Bard asked him. "You're the only person whose gonna read it, so it just has to be good enough for you to enjoy it."

Paper and ink are too expensive for a servant like him to afford, but Finny starts writing the story anyways- in his head.

He starts the story right when Fionn's search began. He has him asking the local children, and one of them saw Sadbh be kidnapped. From there Fionn knew that Fer Doirich lived in the woods, and goes there to find him.

At first Finny thought, "There, now Fionn can find Sadbh and bring her home!" But that ending seemed too short, so he decided to continue it.

The problem was, he had no idea how to go on. So one day while he was bringing in some lilies, Finny decided to ask Meirin what she thought. He made a quick detour and found her putting away some plates in the kitchen.

"Meirin!" Finny called out. "I wanted to ask you about-"

"Waahh!" Meirin cried as she fell from the footstool. Finny gasped and ran to catch her, but he tripped over a table and hit the ground. By the time he looked up she'd already hit the ground and done a tumble roll to avoid injury.

"At least this time I wasn't carrying anything when I fell." She moaned. Finny nodded in agreement.

"Say, Meirin, do y'know anything about old stories?"

"Old stories?"

"Yeah, like my book."

"Huh…" She pondered the question for a moment. "I haven't really ready any stories like that myself, but I know that there's a lot of fairies and quests and stuff like that."

"Fairies?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Like, sometimes it's a really pretty lady whose got lots of magic power, and sometimes it's a helpful spirit trying to guide the lost."

"A helpful fairy?" Finny wondered aloud. "Thank you, Meirin!" He jumped up and turned to leave, "I know what to do next!"

"Uh, yer welcome?"

So after entering the forest, Fionn wandered around in the forest, using his magic thumb to follow Sadbh. A few hours after he set out, he met a fairy named… Meiririrot (people in old stories all had weird names, right?) And the fairy helped him find Sadbh.

"How'd he meet the fairy?" Meirin asked, when he told her this.

…Meiririrot lived in trees like a bird, and she was kinda clumsy, so when Fionn was walking under a tree she accidentally dropped some acorns on his head. She apologized, 'cause it was an accident, so Fionn forgave her and offered her a place on his quest.

"Wait a minute," Bard said, "If this Meirin-"

"Meiririrot." Finny corrected.

"Fine, this Merot had acorns an' a tree, why would she want to go with him on his quest?"

Finny blinked. "I dunno. Because… it was the right thing to do, I guess?"

Bard snorted. "She needs a better reason."

"Like what?" This was a story, and Fionn, at least, always saved girls in need. His nurses taught him to.

"I dunno, maybe the wizard killed her brother or something?" Bard paused. "Anyways, how would Fionn even know that she had a thing against the wizard? Why would he offer to let her join?"

…So after Meiririrot stopped apologizing, she offered him some tea. Fionn couldn't refuse a lady, so he agreed and they went to her house for lunch. There they-

"Hello, birdies!" Finny cried, all thoughts of his story vanishing. "You have a wonderful nest!" The baby birds cried for their mother. "Although it's really neat, I suppose it could be much comfier." Finny mused.

…Meiririrot didn't actually have a house, she had a nest. But she was a fairy and not a real bird, so her nest had a roof on it to keep out the rain, but no walls so she could come and go as she pleased. Also, it had a bed and a kitchen and a stove and a pantry and a table, so she could serve tea comfortably.

"Hold on a second, if this is a nest, wouldn't Fionn be too big to fit inside?"

…Meiririrot also had… uhm… her nest…

"What kind of magic did she have?"

"Huh?"

"Fairies have magical powers, right?" Meirin grinned. For some reason she seemed to like Meiririrot's character a lot.

"What kind of magic?" Finny didn't know that much about fairies. "What can they do with it?"

"I dunno, anything." She shrugged. "It's your story, you can make up any kind of magic and fairy you like."

…Meiririrot had the power to change make things bigger or smaller, so she made Fionn small and then they were able to get into her nest. Well, first he climbed up the tree to her nest, then she made him smaller once they were there so he could get inside.

While she served him tea, Meiririrot asked Fionn where he'd been going before she stopped him…

"By the way, shouldn't the hero have to face some challenges before he can find his wife?"

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By the time the young master, Sebastian, and Snake got back from their trip, Fionn and Meiririrot had set off together and were facing their first two trials. First, they had to cross a bridge, but a mean old imp-

"You should do a troll." Bard said.

"A troll?"

"Yeah, they're better known for guarding bridges." He explained. "Usually they just eat unlucky travelers, but sometimes they let you pass if you pay them a fee."

-Mean old troll wouldn't let anyone across unless they paid a fee. But instead of fighting the troll, Meiririrot made herself huge, so she could fly across with Fionn on her back! (They hadn't been flying all along because she got tired carrying people.)

The troll then started crying, because nobody had ever gotten past him before without paying the toll. Fionn comforted him, and the troll explained that he only controlled the bridge because it was his home, and having people walk all over it woke him up and made him cranky.

"Finny, do you even know what a troll is?"

"Is it like a sheep?" Those liked to block doorways and wouldn't move unless they were bribed with food, so it sounded the same to him.

"…You know what? Never mind." Bard shook his head.

So Fionn put his thumb in his mouth and taught him a lesson about being nice to people. The troll introduced himself as Badbygoy, and decided he would follow Fionn and learn more from him until he found a new home for himself that was quieter.

Then, everybody lost in a magical maze, where monsters attacked anybody who got too close to the center. But they didn't want to go to the center, so they went around the maze and used the sun so they could tell when they were on the opposite side they came in on. Then they left.

Finny told Snake the story when they were working together in the kitchen, and he seemed pretty impressed. Or at least he listened, and didn't interrupt him as often as Bard and Meirin did. (Snake did point out that if Meiririrot and Fionn were in a magical maze, Fionn's thumb couldn't tell them where the exits were, so even once they were on the side of the maze they wanted to be on they had no way to get out.)

(Finny added in a friendly guide- a spirit guide, as Snake suggested- who knew the maze well enough to guide them out and even joined the group 'cause he didn't like living in a maze. But he could only walk during special occasions, so he had to be carried. The spirit guide's name was Taknata.)

(When he introduced the idea to the other servants, Bard suggested giving Taknata the power to see the future, 'cause apparently it always came in handy in stories.)

"Stuff like that doesn't sound so impossible anymore, Says Emily." Snake admitted, staring intensely at the potato he was peeling.

"What do you mean?" Snake paused, looking a little troubled.

"It's just, some strange things happened when we were on that ship." Snake sighed, making Finny even more curious.

"What kind of things?" When Snake groaned he pressed on, "Hey, I told you a story, now you can tell me one!"

The dead coming back to life was one of the strangest things Finny had ever heard of, and considering what his life had been like, that said a lot. Meirin walked in halfway through and insisted Snake tell it from the beginning, but Sebastian showed up before Snake got to the part where the evil doctor ran away and they had to wait until later to hear the rest of it.

The next day during lunch, Finny had an idea for another challenge the heroes could face.

Fionn and his friends ran into an abandoned town, and everybody had left because the graveyard was cursed. Everyone who had ever been buried there suddenly rose up and climbed out of their graves-

"That's not really scary, is it?" Meirin interrupted.

"What are you talking about?" Finny asked, "Aren't dead people always scary?"

"Yeah, but not if they've been dead a long time." Meirin said. "After a while, even skeletons decay, and all you're left with are a few bone fragments."

…The ghosts of everyone who had ever lived there rose from the graves and possessed their old bodies, so even the ghosts that only had a few bones left still had something they could attack people with.

When it came to fighting, Badbygoy could breathe fire, Meiririrot could throw rocks at people from really, really far away and they'd always hit, Taknata just sat there, and Fionn, of course, had the magic spear he'd gotten from his men.

None of these things worked against the ghosts, so the group got really, really scared and almost got killed. But then they started hearing voices, telling them where to run and how to avoid the bizarre dolls. The voices guided them to an abandoned church-

"I don't believe there were churches in the era you're talking about." Sebastian said. Everyone jumped, because nobody had noticed him come in. "I do believe there were temples, though, for pagan worship."

Okay, so the group was led to an abandoned temple, and once they got there the floor collapsed beneath them, but after they fell through it somehow closed up again.

"How-"

"I'm getting to that!" Finny grinned.

The group got ready to fight, 'cause they didn't know what was in the dark. But then a man stepped forth into the light, 'an he was all covered in scales. 'Cept he couldn't speak, he had these snakes that spoke for him. He was a wizard, just like Fer Doirich-

"Actually, Fer Doirich was a druid."

"You said that was the same thing…"

"Did I?" Sebastian chuckled. "They're close, but not quite. You see, a druid manipulates the energy of nature, and while they do magic, they also worship certain pagan gods."

"Aw, what difference does it make?" Bard scoffed. "Wizard, druid, it's not like anybody cares-"

"Thank you, Sebastian!" Finny cried, "That really helps!"

The man was a druid, just like Fer Doirich, and he was more connected to the snake part of nature then any other part. So the man could see through the eyes of snakes, and he had his snake friends talk to him. He called himself Snake, 'cause he was a snake druid.

"That could have been more subtle, says Emily." Snake muttered.

"Is any of this subtle?" Bard hissed back.

You see, the snake druid is kinda a new druid, and up until recently he was still apprenticed (Finny was very pleased with himself for having asked Sebastian about wizards- even if Fer Doirich was a druid). His master found out that the town was cursed and they went to go see if they could help, but it turns out that Fer Doirich had been the one to curse the town, and he killed the snake druid's master.

Snake had been trying to escape the town and find justice for his master's death, but the only way to escape the town was to open up a passageway beneath the temple that was blocked by boulders. Snake had been stuck in town this entire time.

Hearing his story, Fionn and his friends explained that they were trying to rescue Sadbh from Fer Doirich, and that they'd be happy to have another friend along for the ride. Fionn put his thumb in his mouth, and he figured out that they could move the boulders if they used large sticks as levers-

"Levers, huh?" Bard snorted. "You wouldn't by chance have come up with that when we had to get the cabinet back on it's feet while you were passed out, would you?"

"That wasn't my fault!" Finny insisted. "I told you, I can't have alcohol, even in cake!"

"When exactly was this?" Sebastian asked with a cold grin.

…Anyways, they used sticks as levers, and everybody worked together, and they managed to get the passageway open and escape the town.

"And what happened then?" Meirin asked.

"I dunno." Finny said. "I haven't figured that out yet."

"Shame." Sebastian said. "But now at least you can continue the story of this alcoholic cake? The one where a cabinet apparently fell over and Finny passed out?"

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After Easter, Finny knows how they're going to kill Fer Doirich.

While the young master is attending school, there's less work to do around the house (or there's more the servants can get away with not doing), so he has enough time to think up a long, exciting ending.

First he has them attacked by fairies, who only stop when they see the ring Fionn is wearing. It turns out to be Sadbh's brother, Setbhya, who knows that his sister was kidnapped, and is trying to rescue her. Setbhya tells everyone that they have to collect seven sacred eggs that are scattered on a mountain, in order to use their power to defeat Fer Doirich.

Finny comes up with a long winded tale involving exploding rocks, giant lizards that look scary at first glance but just want to be your friend, enchanted wind that makes a sound so beautiful anyone who falls under it's spell goes to sleep forever (or at least until someone else comes along and wakes them up), and finally the last egg being hidden at the very peak of the mountain.

By the time Fer Doirich is defeated in a burst of beautiful light- ("A physical rainbow!")- everyone is sad that the story is over.

"It was fun while it lasted." Meirin sighed.

"You know, you should write that down." Sebastian suggested.

"Write what down?" Just then the young master walked in.

"Oh- Good morning, sir!" Finny chirped. The young master looked as bored as ever.

"I'll ask again. What were you talking about just now?" Finny fidgets, not sure how to respond.

"It- it's just a story I came up with, sir." He explains. "'Cause, I didn't like the ending of Sadbh's story, so I wrote a new one."

"Really?" The young master looked a little amused as he sat down. "How does it go?"

Finny blinked. He looked at Sebastian. Sebastian looked at the young master. Finny looked at the other servants. They all had their mouths open, staring in shock. Finny looked back at the young master. He had noticed everyone's reactions.

"…Is this going to be-"

"Let's start at the beginning." Finny grinned. "Lucky for you, I've already finished it…"

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[1] In the original, Fer Doirich was an evil druid. I figured that Finny wouldn't know what the word "druid" mean, ask Bard, when he didn't know he'd ask Sebastian, who might translate it as "wizard" (thinking Finny's too slow to understand the difference.) Since the word "wizard" gets used more then the word "druid," I thought he might stick with that.

[2] I have no idea if Sadbh was chaste in the original myth, but Finny read her story out of a book printed in Victorian England. Victorian England, as far as I know, edited all of their stories to include some moral value, and there has to be some copy of Fenian Cycle out there that holds the female character up as a paragon of goodness and purity.

AN: So, originally this was a character-relationship study, about the relationship Finny has with Ciel. Hence why the beginning has so much about their relationship. I decided to keep that in, because it gives Finny an emotional connection to Fionn.

And although I never got the chance to write the last section (and I'm afraid I'll never finish the story if I drag it out too long), he would have pictured Sadbh just like Ciel. Maybe one day I'll continue this, or go back and write in the last bit of the story.