blood red moon
~ a Shadow of Destiny fanfiction
Chapter Seven
The world he awoke to was a blurry watercolor, and for a few moments Eike was sure he was still dreaming. Awareness finally bled through the darkness behind his eyes in small patches, here and there, lighting on a detail here and there before fading back into a marginally clearer whole.
He was not dead, this was surprising enough on its own.
//... nn? Where?//
Fingertips slowly distinguished the difference between smooth wood and stone, seamlessly merging beneath him. Eike realized a moment too late he was examining the incongruity with a damaged hand, winced as the pain asserted itself, though it did bring the rest of the world into a sharp focus almost instantly.
“You’re awake.”
He blinked twice, knew he was gazing blankly at the creature still perched on his legs. Homunculus was staring back at him a bit more intelligently, arms crossed, head tilted like a curious bird.
“You’re still here.” It didn’t hurt as much to speak as he thought it would, the blonde thought as he swallowed - at least he could be grateful for that.
“Good morning to you, too, Eike.” The pale man’s usual dry, patient sigh, with maybe a hint of amusement at its edge, helped pull him further out of sleep. “Yes, it seems last night’s little adventure did take as much out of me as I thought.” He raised an eyebrow. “I can only assume it’s more interesting to actually sleep than it is to have to sit and watch it.”
“I’m sorry if I was boring you.” He was fairly sure the dry sarcasm in his voice went right over the djinn’s head, either he didn’t notice or did and didn’t care - Eike placed his bets on that second one.
“... what time is it?”
Homunculus laughed. Eike’s eyes widened in utter surprise at the sudden amusement, he hadn’t even been sure the djinn could laugh, not a confident chuckle or a cruel smirk but an actual, happy laugh. The pale man seemed equally surprised, quickly schooling himself back to his usual self-satisfied half-smile.
“Time does not exist here.”
“So...” Eike moved, a mistake, and grimaced at the pain that shot up his still-broken arm. “All right, so moving is out, not that I have anywhere to go. I feel like I was hit by a truck.”
“A car, I think, not so big.”
It was just too damn weird, to hear the djinn actually telling jokes, and he was glad he had closed his eyes, afraid he’d be gaping otherwise. Eike sighed, letting his head fall back, glancing up at Homunculus through half-closed eyes. “Can you move?”
“When you make such a comfortable seat? Why, whatever for?”
One blonde eyebrow quirked, a very un-Eike gesture of annoyance, and he nearly smiled as Homunculus made an equally annoyed sound - //As if it’s required of him to match me, irritation for irritation.// The djinn shifted where he sat, pushing on the blonde’s knee and shin as he tried to stand.
“Careful, careful.”
Homunculus raised a surprised eyebrow, before responding with that ever-present smirk, quite amused now.
“Really Eike, what concern. I never knew you cared.” Eike scowled at the djinn, though that only seemed to amuse him more. “Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. I control all elements of this space, nothing here can harm me - perhaps you, I’m not sure.” The dry humor in his voice let the blonde know how serious a threat he considered /that/. “I am perfectly safe here. /We/ are safe here, for the time being.”
The djinn made a decent effort to get to his feet, but it was fairly obvious he was going nowhere, pride keeping him struggling to try for a few seconds more than was absolutely necessary.
“... and that appears to be a good thing. Neither one of us has much to be proud of in that battle.” He sighed, relaxing back. Amazing, how light he was, obviously as fragile as he had once claimed.
“We’re still alive, that’s something.”
“I suppose.”
A thought, half-formed, flitted at the back of Eike’s mind for a moment, but the more he tried to focus on it the blurrier and less defined it became. Something to do with Dopple - not that everything didn’t have to do with her since she had appeared.
//Bad to worse, I thought I was in trouble before she came along.// - He sighed again, looking up. Homunculus seemed lost in thought - or searching, concentrating on something Eike couldn’t see or understand.
//I don’t understand /any/ of this.//
The djinn tipped his head slightly, and Eike frowned, staring as something against his ear caught the light. He hadn’t noticed it the last time they had met, of course, too busy not trusting Homunculus while trying to save his own life to care about any details. Still, it seemed odd, for all his fragility and slender stature, there was nothing at all feminine about Homunculus. The adornment seemed unnecessary, out of place.
He was bored enough, tired enough not to think before asking, as the djinn finished whatever he had been doing, red eyes turning in his direction anyway.
“What is that?”
“Hm?”
Eike was amazed, as he pointed, that Homunculus shied away slightly from his touch, as if in surprise he only found... fear?
//Afraid of me? Now you’ve really lost it, Eike.//
“... that, there.” Very gently, he tapped the long, gold cuff that rode the ridge of the djinn’s softly pointed ear. Homunculus still looked very uneasy, with Eike’s hand out of his direct line of sight, and the blonde frowned.
“Are you all right? You seem... jumpy.”
A glance in his direction, but Homunculus quickly looked away, shaking his head sharply.
“It’s nothing. You were asking about the limiter?”
“Limiter?”
Pale fingers pressed lightly against the gold surface Eike had barely touched, red eyes cast downward, narrow, with a hint of a frown on the doll-like face.
“It was created a very long time ago, by a very powerful magician, one of you humans, actually. It’s what keeps me in this body, in this physical form. Forever.”
“You can’t take it off?”
“No one can take it off.”
Eike frowned, that didn’t seem right, not fair at all - and he caught Homunculus watching him very closely again, almost searching for something this time.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. I must have been mistaken.”
The icy edge in the pale man’s tone was both surprising and unmistakable - Eike knew he should drop it, he was being all but /ordered/ to drop it. As usual, though, as if his lack of tact was also a memory issue, his words darted out in front of his brains.
“You think that I think it’s fair, for that to happen to you, because of what you are.”
“Of course.” The educated scholar look now, as if Eike were some hapless schoolboy in desperate need of enlightenment. “I’m a demon, aren’t I? If anything, I deserve worse.”
Eike shrugged, too troubled by his own emotions to notice Homunculus’s confused stare, unable to give a clear answer - it should have been clear, shouldn’t it?
“You saved my life, though... whether it was for selfish reasons or not, and I suppose there are enough evil people in the world, who’ve done things just as bad as you have. You’re probably not any more dangerous than most of them.”
He realized, as the silence stretched out, that he had completely baffled the pale man.
“... every time I think I understand you.” Homunculus finally murmured, and before Eike had a chance to ask what he meant, the djinn clambered - awkward but intently - to his feet, swaying just a little. Red eyes met his when he finally turned back, and Eike suddenly felt tired. It had been an effort just watching him.
“I’m fine down here, thanks.” He moved his unbroken arm in something like a wave. The djinn nodded, crossing his arms and stepping back to survey his domain.
“I’ll fix your arm, as soon as I’ve regained a little more strength. It shouldn’t take long.”
“You can do that?”
Homunculus said nothing, just gave him that damned smirk again - and Eike quietly wondered when it had started to seem familiar, somewhat comforting. Hell, it wasn’t as if he wouldn’t take just about anything over Dopple.
“Who is the girl trying to kill me?”
“She told me her name was Dopple.”
“I know, she told me too. She looked... a little bit like you. Actually, a lot like you. Did I step into the middle of a family feud or something.
An ungracious snort. “I have no ‘family’. No, she is nothing like me, not of the djinni, or any other sort of demon, as far as I can tell... although she is unique in time. An interesting detail.”
“Unique?”
Homunculus blinked, raising a pale hand. “Time is a series of frozen fragments, sort of, each one diverging, and diverging with each moment that passes. You exist in all of these, a different you, sometimes only slightly changed, sometimes almost unrecognizable. I, on the other hand, am only a phantom in these worlds - I can see what will become of me but I do not exist there fully, not like a human does. Dopple is the same. Two types of existence that can interact, can change one another in multiple times, but are also different and not necessarily as strong a measurement of the future. Do you understand?”
Eike really wanted to lie, but another slight, disgusted sound from Homunculus’s direction told him the other man already knew.
“No, of course you don’t.” It was so complicated, and true, Eike didn’t even bother feeling annoyed at the pat reaction.
He watched as the djinn continued a slow, even sweep of his domain, sometimes leaning closer here and there, eyes narrowing as if he were searching, or checking on something. It must have been fascinating, to feel what he was feeling, to know what it was he was looking for. Eike was content to watch, every inch of him still feeling bruised and sore. He just wasn’t made for this.
“So, where did she come from? Who is this Dopple? Did someone create her?”
The djinn froze, Eike could see it, and in the single moment that the red eyes flicked toward him he saw a turbulent sweep of emotions - none of them good.
“What is it?”
The pause was more than noticeable, the pale man still having a difficult time thinking of something to say.
“I don’t know where she came from. If she /was/ created somehow, or released the way I was, I don’t know by who.”
Homunculus was lying to him, quite blatantly, but Eike wondered how in the world he could know anything for sure, given his excellent track record of being the djinn’s ignorant pawn.
//I’m just jumping the gun, because he never tells me the truth. Or maybe I really am getting more observant. Right, Eike, and maybe the Rhine will switch directions and flow with amber lager.// It could be that the djinn wasn’t as good at subterfuge without time to plan, who knew how long he’d been able to work on things before this, to make sure Eike would do exactly as he’d wanted?
It wasn’t worth it to press the issue, not now. It didn’t really matter what Dopple was, if Homunculus had still saved his life, and seemed just as much an enemy to her as he was.
//The enemy of my enemy...//
In a way, he didn’t want to know too much, and tried to pick just a few questions, the most important. It probably did matter where she came from, and what her past was - but he was scared. Thinking about her made him afraid, and if he didn’t have any clues, Homunculus would be no help at all. It just wasn’t worth the effort.
“So, why does she want to kill me?”
“It’s probably because you’ve lived so long, because of your - or Wagner’s - wish.” Homunculus frowned slightly. “Forces exist within all things, call them the Fates, or the Fortunes, sentient beings, though not like humans, really. They exist to keep things in a balance, or what they consider to be a balance. It isn’t as if you’re greatly disrupting things by being alive, but they are... picky. The way they do things is the only way they allow.”
“So, you have something in common.” Eike expected the scowl, considered that grinning back might be asking for trouble but did it anyway. “It does sound... a little personal?”
Homunculus crossed his arms with a tiny, derisive chuckle.
“There are a few djinni out there, like myself, manipulators of time. Of course, we aren’t very popular to those forces that try to keep things moving smoothly, without any unexpected changes.”
“All things have to die,” Eike sighed. “Entropy, aging, decay... it’s the way things work, isn’t it?”
Homunculus sneered a bit, though there was humor in it somewhere.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to try it based on theory.”
“So, if these ‘forces’ don’t like you, and you helped make me immortal...”
“It looks like we’re on the same team again, Eike. At least for now.”
The blonde nodded, expecting the content, knowing smile and the ungracious terms. The implications - the djinn was an ally, but not a friend - fine, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t gotten used to being without friends.
Eike paused. He knew he should have said something noncommittal, or agreeable, but a sudden thought skittered into play. Even before all of this, before Dopple and Homunculus’s reappearance, he had been in trouble. After all of this was over, he would still be in trouble, unless he did something to change that now.
“If I help you, what do I get out of it?”
Eike knew it was a tough question, knew Homunculus would take it badly, could see the djinn’s demeanor toughen - of course he didn’t like making deals, not when there was the slightest chance he might lose. He smirked angrily, glaring at Eike as if he had finally proven himself an overwhelming idiot.
“Your life, Eike? After all you went through before this, I assumed it would be enough-”
“It’s not.” He shook his head sharply, a few blonde strands escaping their loose ponytail. “I don’t want to forget this. I know enough to know who I am and what you did, and I can’t lose that again. I don’t want to go crazy. /If/ I can help you get rid of that Dopple creature, I want my life back. I want my memories back.”
“I can’t.”
“You /can/.” No lying, he couldn’t accept it, not this time, it was too important.
“No, Eike, I can’t.” The djinn snapped back, “I don’t expect you to understand, but that’s just not how the spell works. I can’t go back and give you everything you’ve forgotten - and for you, I think that’s a blessing, even if you don’t know it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you think that history just passed you by? Did you really think this business with Hugo was the first time you were in danger - fated to die or not, even if you can’t remember it, time has not been your friend.” He turned toward the window, gazing through it, poised as if to show Eike something... but changing his mind at the last moment. It was infuriating.
“You were in both of those great wars, you know - you called them ‘world’ wars, I think - and your judgment was little better then than it is now, you were on the losing side in both.”
“I was a soldier?”
“You were quite popular, really. You humans place so much on appearance, it’s quite amusing. The first time around, you were merely a warm body, a faceless soldier - but they liked you even more the second time around, even if they thought the war had left your memory less than perfect. Blonde hair, tall and fair - you were the ideal solider, and you followed orders with no hesitation, no matter what. It /would/ be easier to do, wouldn’t it, if you didn’t have to remember what you were responsible for later?”
Eike swallowed, hard. If Homunculus meant what he thought...
//I went to war. I wasn’t one of the ‘good guys’.// He didn’t want to imagine how it might go downhill from there, what the djinn might have been implying, and what he hadn’t chosen to show him outright.
“You’re lying.”
“He thought the djinn would have been smirking now, but he seemed to be getting no amusement from any of this.
“/I/ don’t care one way or the other Eike, I’ve seen a marvelous amount of human cruelty in my time. If it ever mattered why or how you and your kind can hurt each other, it doesn’t interest me anymore. If you’re going to be so damned adamant about remembering your past, though, you should at least understand what you’re asking me for. You think that’s the worst of it? Asylums and back alleys and lovers hating you when you couldn’t remember their name, things you’ve done to survive and things others have done to you - you don’t remember, Eike... but /I/ know.”
It seemed nauseatingly self-righteous, as if Homunculus was being /generous/ somehow, for not giving him the truth, his past, hiding this and god knew what else from him as if it would be better for him - as if a demon could know what was best for a man!
“I want to know. It doesn’t matter if it hurts - it’s the truth. It’s more important that it’s the truth.”
Homunculus had turned away from him, posed in the deliberate manner of someone trying very hard not to lose their temper. “I can’t, you foolish, stupid... I would if I could, /then/ you’d see, but I can’t.”
“Give me my future, then.”
“What?” Eike was surprised at the sudden, violent response, Homunculus immediately looking up, staring at him with a blank, utterly pole-axed expression.
“If you can’t give me back everything, then I want it all from here on out. If I help you defeat her, I’m /not/ going back to a blank slate.”
He expected just about anything, a snide comment or a sharper retort - he really didn’t expect the djinn to frown, and turn away and dissolve without another word.
“Damn.”
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Author’s Notes –
1. Limiters... I think I saw them in ‘Sayuki’ first. It was the connection I made in my mind, at least, with that little thing on Hom’s ear.
2. An interlude chapter. I just like having them talk.
Homunculus: You like torturing me with useless banter, you mean.
Me: Hell yeah, pale boy.
Eike: So, how about those Mets?
Homunculus: Die, human.