blood red moon
~ a Shadow of Destiny fanfiction
Chapter Eleven
“What are you doing?”
The little girl looked up, squinting a bit to pick her out amidst the foliage, before returning her attention to the ground.
“Hopscotch.”
“Oh.”
Funny how little children had no real sense of what should be and what might truly be dangerous - why it might be important to question the safety of talking to women in trees. Dielle never thought she’d looked that dangerous, really, though most humans seemed to disagree. One of her masters had said it outright when she had asked, explained that there was something too sharp in her eyes and her smile, in every corner of the body she chose to wear. He might have been right, not that she could tell, and not that she would change even then.
The little girl looked back up at her after a moment, a frown scrunching her slightly chubby features.
“You don’t know what hopscotch is?”
“No.”
“You’re weird.”
Dielle laughed at the blunt statement. “Fair enough. I suppose I am.”
She watched the girl play for a little while longer, throwing down a stone, leaping on one foot from square to square. Come to think of it, it did seem somewhat familiar, though in a way just as outdated as her frock coat, or baggy-kneed pants with high socks, even the messy cut of her curly bob haircut. It wasn’t as if she changed with the times, not when it was so much easier just to change times. It might even be worth it to double back later, and see exactly where it had been that she’d seen the game first.
“Hey! Hey!” The little girl was yelling at her now, young enough to still be blatantly, unforgivably rude. “Come down here!”
Dielle shrugged, and let go of the branch, tipping forward, floating gently to the ground. The wind rustled through her feathers, making a different sound than the leaves, and the detail pleased her to hear. The little girl’s eyes widened slightly, though she still didn’t seem truly frightened.
“You’ve got wings.”
“I do.” The addition was entirely non-functional, the product of watching some stage production she could no longer remember, a century or two before this one, most likely. Certainly, the strange appendages had been for the part of some demon, or fallen angel. The feathers were sparse, gray and black as if burned, tangled in places with a cobwebby netting, holes poking here through and there like the walls of a bombed-out building. It was a strange sort of beauty, but it had intrigued her then, and she still liked it now.
“Soft.”
Dielle was startled at the small rustle, the girl pressing both hands gently against her feathers. What a bold little creature, even if her expression had become, maybe, a bit fearful. As if it had just occurred to her that the winged girl might not be human.
“I like you, I think.” She smiled indulgently.
“So?”
Dielle giggled at the girl’s response. The tone had been just a whisper, but the word was still so petulant.
“I do like you! I think you’ll make me a fine new master.”
It was better to keep going, get to the benefits, when even a child might ask too many questions.
“So, do you know what I am?”
“No.” A little more afraid, even if it was really too late for all that. Dielle smiled, thought it probably came off a little frightening - she was setting the hook, after all.
“I’m a genie.”
It was a new term, and in other times she had needed to explain even the old terms, but here there were already many stories. Books, and movies, even, a clever sort of picture storytelling she enjoyed quite a bit. It was mostly made up about them, what they were and how they worked, but that was even better for her. Why bother arguing with someone who thought they knew the truth?
“... like Aladdin?”
No, it didn’t look like she’d have to explain a thing. Dielle nodded. “It’s something like that, yes.”
“You grant wishes?”
The offer never changed, it had never needed to. Already, even this little girl’s fear was tempered by a great deal of ambition. Not that Dielle could fault her, she’d never met anyone who would ignore a free chance at greatness - and usually even if they knew it was a dangerous gamble. Humans liked to take big risks, how could she not enjoy that?
“I do at that. Usually it’s just the one.” Dielle knew from experience, most humans were skilled enough to do all the damage they could to themselves, and anyone else, with only a single wish. Still, this child was rather amusing. “Maybe for you, I can make an exception.”
It wasn’t as if she usually chose children, picked them because they tended to be easier targets. Dielle wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t just grant the child’s wish - they usually asked too fast, or wanted silly, small things, and go quietly on her way.
It was impossibly dull to keep stealing the souls of the greedy, they were so often just as stupid as they were demanding, so easy to trick. No matter what the other djinn may have thought, no matter how seriously they took themselves, Dielle knew her entire life was more a act of play than war.
It was in that spirit that she’d become a moralist of sorts, specializing in granting wishes to teach lessons. Making sure her masters walked away - if they walked away - considering their flaws, realizing that it was their own greed or hubris or some other sin that had brought them to this point. She was merely a capricious conscience, doing nothing that they wouldn’t have done to themselves with a little more time and effort.
Sometimes it amused her, especially at moments like this, when she could see the human child’s mind racing over so many possibilities, all the things she could wish into reality. Adults had such boring wishes - either money or power or revenge towards someone who’d scorned them, or who they thought had scorned them. A child’s wishes were often much more creative, even when vengeful. Especially when vengeful.
The little girl seemed to be experiencing one of these moments, her eyes narrowing slightly above a pouting lip.
“I wish you would get my brother.”
It was surprisingly refreshing, such a vague command. Most humans were very, very specific with their words, either to try and keep the wish from rebounding back on them somehow, or because they wanted to wreak some extremely specific punishment. Usually, that meant it was dull for her, though it was fun to trick the smart ones anyway. The child, though, was only interested in righting the wrong, the concept of magnitude seemed utterly beyond her.
“How?”
The little girl frowned. “You’re the genie, aren’t you?”
Dielle laughed. “Well, what did he do to you?” She might at least try to make this something other than purely mean and spiteful - although even that had its place.
“He broke my bike. He’s always mean, he takes my toys and...” The scowl deepened. “I want him to be a balloon head.”
Dielle laughed. “A balloon head.”
“Yes. Yes. One of those poodle shapes, like you can get at a fair. I want that.” The little girl became more and more excited, using her hands to make sure Dielle understood exactly what she meant, size and shape. The djinn was tempted to ignore this wish, return and do this all over again when the child was grown. If she was this stubborn and blunt as a child, imagine the kind of wishes she would ask for at thirty. But a wish was a wish, and a master was a master, and she could always grant the request and return to see what had become of it.
“All right. I can do that. Why don’t we go find-”
The first moment Dielle felt its arrival, she wondered which djinn had accidentally crossed her path, and how quickly they would leave. No one would seek her out, surely, and she didn’t want to be distracted now, not in the middle of things.
It could have been one of a few, some of her kind were decidedly more sloppy than others, bashing their way through time more often than not, acting with an amazing lack of grace. Ready for an annoying encounter, no matter how short it might be, Dielle turned, only to stop short.
“Wait. You’re not...”
“No.” A smirking grin, very cruel. “I’m not.”
Pale skin, glittering red eyes - but she was not who Dielle remembered, not him - what had he been calling himself, trapped inside that useless body? Had he ever escaped?
“... I don’t think I like her.” No courage remained, this time the child’s voice was only a soft, wary whisper, the girl nearly cowering behind her. Silently, Dielle agreed.
“Who are you?”
“The end of time.”
The creature brought an arm up, a fracture trailing along behind her fingertips, a crack in this universe wide and growing, and without warning or further preamble she threw it forward, the howl scream of warped time rising as it plunged toward the djinn. Dielle nimbly leapt out of the way, realizing only as she did so that the little girl had been hiding behind her, and hadn’t moved.
//No!//
It was too late, there was nothing she could do, except turn and watch as the human was rent and torn apart by the sudden storm in time. The child shattered into the pieces of a thousand worlds, her scream breaking in half in the air as she stumbled back, fading into smoky, jagged splinters, before disappearing completely.
Dielle’s eyes were wide, she struggled to draw a breath through her incredulity. The rules - of /course/ she made her sport of humans, but there were rules, necessary rules and this was nothing but pure chaos, insanity on a much larger scale. What kind of a creature could be so callous, could care so little for such necessary laws?
“What... what have you done?!”
Dielle realized the pale creature wasn’t going to answer, as she looked up to see her already lunging, a long gleaming blade drawn, a mad, wild fire turning red glass eyes to brightly glowing embers.
--------------
Eike woke up, immediately surprised. He’d never intended on falling asleep, had been wondering if he’d ever feel safe enough to relax again. It seemed the answer was yes, though it was odd as ever that this was a place he would ever think of as refuge.
He would have sworn Homunculus hadn’t moved from his place at the top of the bookcase,, except that his hand had been healed, the cast nowhere in sight. Eike held it up, flexing his wrist and finding no pain, looking curiously at the djinn over the tips of his fingers. Homunculus glanced up with a casual disinterest, before returning his gaze to the window in front of him.
//So it was all... what? A way to pass some slow moments? Is it another mind game?// Eike wondered just how long a time had to pass between an unexpected event and talking about it, before it would be as if it hadn’t ever happened in the first place.
He sat up slowly, stretching out a few aches here and there - //hot shower, oh man, need a hot shower.// Whatever else happened, however bad it got, he was going to get a shower in somehow, before the end of the world. Eike got to his feet, dusting himself off, waiting for Homunculus to say anything at all before realizing it wasn’t likely to happen. He sighed, ready to play the fool again if he might actually learn what was going on.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to rally the troops. Trying.” The djinn scowled, eyes still scanning some distant horizon through the windowpanes, connecting to something Eike was certain he wouldn’t understand.
He remembered the cool, not entirely hostile tone of the other djinn, though even his worry about Homunculus had seemed disaffected, something to use to his own ends, not at all selfless. With the way Homunculus acted most of the time, Eike could not imagine that the other djinni were much different.
“It isn’t working, is it?”
“You’ve heard the expression ‘herding cats’?” Homunculus rolled his eyes, sighing. It was an impressive gesture from someone usually so reserved.
//Or at least, you thought he was.//
Eike studied him now, thankful the djinn’s attention was on other matters, and he could watch him closely. It would have helped him think, if he knew at all what to think anymore. Strangely, all the facts seemed to stick in his mind as only facts, bare, with no meaning attached.
//He kissed me. It didn’t seem to be for any ulterior motive. He certainly didn’t seem sure of himself afterward. I’m still alive.//
Funny how he’d think of that before ever even asking the simple question - how had /he/ felt about it all?
//So..? How?//
So... well of course, he’d been shocked - but more at the djinn’s unexpected forwardness than the act itself.
//It was a risk, and he doesn’t take risks. If he truly meant everything he said, it was such a risk for him.//
Did he care for the djinn? A difficult question, and Eike wondered how he could even begin to answer it. How could he, if he didn’t even know who he was anymore? He’d been living moment to moment for centuries, losing one self only to gain another just as temporary. Was his opinion worth anything at all?
//You weren’t lying, what you said to him.// He had no one, nowhere to go, no time and no people he truly wanted to call his own.
//His fault. All his fault!!!//
Eike grimaced at the seething voice that rose up, screaming inside his mind, leaving his stomach churning at those memories of future isolation. Knowing that some future self had spent endless lifetimes in a landscape so desolate that memory was unnecessary, useless in a place where nothing changed.
//He isn’t winning anything. He was angry then, he’s angry now and he has every right to be. I won’t blame him. I won’t.//
It wasn’t love, then, unless he’d missed out on some new definition, but it certainly wasn’t indifference. Concern pushed him along, concern and curiosity both. He didn’t want Homunculus to have to go back to searching for masters, despising the pale prison of his own body, fighting with all he had just for simple dignity. He also didn’t want to be alone, and if anyone had any hope of understanding him anymore, it was the djinn.
//I do like this, I think. I like him. I like wondering what’s going to happen next. If he wants to keep me around, if I’m still alive at the end of this... I’ll stay.//
Resolving things, at least for the moment, Eike glanced up, surprised to find Homunculus studying him, watching him as closely as he himself had been watching, moments before.
“So... do you want to talk about it, or do we just pretend that didn’t happen?”
Eike was somewhat startled he said the words aloud, though he was proud that he could be so blunt. It was a fair question, and if the djinn truly wanted to forget it, Eike would let it go. However, if Homunculus dared to say ‘about what,’ he swore he would shake him until his red eyes rattled.
The djinn didn’t answer, and didn’t answer - and didn’t answer. Didn’t even look his way.
“Fine. So it didn’t happen.”
“No. It happened.” All right, now that was a surprise, the djinn rejecting the easy way out. Homunculus didn’t look any more satisfied with it, though, his chin tilted at an odd, proud and nervous angle.
“So? Now what?”
“I don’t know.” Homunculus slowly folded his arms, still watching Eike carefully. It seemed so silly. He couldn’t believe the djinn wasn’t humoring him.
“What do you think I’m going to do to you? What do you think I could do? We both know you’re smarter than me, even if I wanted to do something...” He paused, as the question came up and he asked it without thinking. “Can I stay?”
If they kept hitting each other with these sorts of verbal bats, Eike thought, one of them was going to get hurt. Homunculus looked as if he still might fall over, stunned by the simple question. “What?”
“If we both survive all of this... and you did kiss me, you know.” He risked a fragile, hopeful grin, wondered what he thought he was doing, wondered if it was at all wise to bring that up again. “Will you let me stay?”
It didn’t matter how far things went, that there was a limit on any sort of relationship - there was something rather special about knowing how much a simple touch, a single glance could do. It seemed to mean just as much to the djinn as all the flowers and sonnets in the world.
Eike knew he was playing on entirely new ground, with no borders or rules, no idea what to say or do or what might come of it. Honestly, he found it fascinating, intriguing. He was a scientist with a very personal hypothesis, and it would probably be anything but limited.
“There isn’t anything out there for me, not anymore. Please, can I stay?”
“I...” Red eyes darkened slightly, Homunculus seemed to have no end of trouble with the question. “Why would you ever want-”
He was cut off by a sudden, high-pitched and violent cry. Eike leapt back from a sudden tumult of dark feathers and brilliant light - the light itself was shrieking - looked up, wondering why Homunculus didn’t look worried at all.
The howling roar slowly faded into distinct syllables, just as the vague pillar of bright fire started to take on definition, an arm appearing here from the blaze, the source of the feathers now defined as two wide wings snapped up - a girl strode out of the dimming light, cursing roundly at Homunculus in the same foreign tongue he had heard once before.
//... another djinni? I guess his call got through.//
She stopped mere inches from his pale face, staring down at him - taller by a few inches, one finger shaking sharply as she continued yelling. Homunculus didn’t reply, didn’t even move, watching her with an unshakable calm that seemed all the more impressive now - she could hurt him, this newcomer could hurt him with any misstep or accidental gesture, and he acted as if he barely noticed her at all.
The female djinn seemed to realize it too, cut off her ranting and spun on her heel, stopping in her tracks as she finally noticed Eike. He thought about introducing himself, his hand hovering somewhere in the ‘handshake or weak wave’ range, but she had already looked back towards Homunculus, speaking a few more low, foreign words. He responded just as calmly - Eike was fairly certain she had asked who he was, and he wondered just what Homunculus had said in response. She studied him for a few more moments, before turning back so fast her wings thrummed in the air.
“Did you or did you not send that crazy psycho thing after me?!”
//Speaking English, now, because of me?//
“I’ve been trying to call.” Homunculus said mildly, and Eike had to hold back a smile. If he didn’t have to do more than watch, the djinn’s nonchalance was actually quite amusing. The girl frowned darkly, and Homunculus shook his head.
“I didn’t send it after you, but we do have a problem.”
“No kidding. The lunatic nearly killed me! It /did/ kill-” She paused, all the rage draining from her in moments. “My... the little girl I was - she was going to be my next master. It isn’t supposed to happen like that, she wasn’t supposed to do that.”
The female djinn shivered, just slightly, her body growing very still. Eike wondered just what the connection was between the djinn and those they chose to serve. It seemed so much more personal than master and servant - or even from how Homunculus seemed to view it, a constant, invisible struggle between predator and prey. After a moment, the winged girl threw off her sorrow, returned to glaring at the other djinn.
“So if you were trying to call me, that means you know who it was, right?”
“Yes.” Homunculus raised an eyebrow. “Why did you assume I was responsible for this, before I told you?”
“You’re always involved with the biggest problems... and she looked like you. A lot like you.” The girl paused, and glanced in Eike’s direction again. He resisted the urge to step back.
“It’s Atropos.”
“What? No.” She stared at Homunculus, waiting for the punch line. “No, that isn’t possible. I know she doesn’t /like/ us, but she can’t just, she can’t...”
“She can, and she has. It’s the reason I’ve been trying to reach you, despite the fact that everyone seems intent on ignoring me. It’s not going to stop with you, or that girl. Atropos wants to kill us all, and I think she’s willing to go to any lengths to do it.”
The girl laughed, a sharp, unimpressed bark, striding quickly past him, scowling fiercely into his window, casting her gaze far into the void.
“Well, what she wants and what she’s going get are two very different things... and no one better ignore me.”
It wasn’t a half hour later that Eike was standing hip deep in djinni.
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Author’s Notes -
1. Expected this chapter and the next chapter to be one chapter, but decided to cut it off to keep things running a little shorter. So however many chapters I said were left, just add one.