blood red moon
~ a Shadow of Destiny fanfiction
Epilogue
It was the sort of night Oscar had hated back home, the fog sweeping down thick and foreboding over every green hollow and field, turning familiar streets into places to make even the stout-hearted jump at an unexpected noise. Here in London, though, he could still hear all the bustle of the city, lanterns and streetlights burning cheerily along the lane, the steady clop of his horse’s footsteps on stone. The air was remarkably fresh, even, though nothing seemed to dispel the fog. It wasn’t a night for wandering dark alleys, of course, but he had never been much for that sort of thing anyway.
Oscar pulled the horse up short, glancing up at the tall, narrow townhouse, rather dark and forbidding compared with the other houses around it, lit and full of life. The man had said they were just moving in, but still, no servants to greet them? No family that had come ahead, to make the homecoming bright?
//Only a single trunk.// Well, the other possessions might be coming in the morning, along with the family - and Oscar knew there were much worse things for a rich man to be than a spendthrift, or a bachelor.
He stepped down carefully from the carriage, rapped on the door with the back of a hand. “We’re here sir.”
“Thank you.”
The man was one of the more genial people Oscar had ferried around, even when the trip had met with unexpected delays, the carriage locked behind some disturbance or another that had slowed the busy street to a crawl. The man had simply laughed a bit, waving off his apologies, claiming that he had all the time in the world. He was tall, lean but not quite gangly, his expensive clothes so at odds with his laid-back manner it left the carriage driver wondering how he hadn’t been easy pickings for any number of unscrupulous businessmen long before arriving here.
Oscar liked the city, liked to study people, and was certain he might have found the answer, or at least would have an even better sense of the man if not for his startlingly odd companion.
At first, Oscar had taken him for some sort of servant, a thought quickly dispatched when the tall blonde had loaded up his trunk single-handed, never hinting that the shorter man would have even offered help. Not that it seemed he was capable of lifting much besides his own weight. The hands were his first clue that all was not as it appeared. Thin, pale, and so starkly white that at first Oscar wondered what illness was consuming him. He thought it must have been a child, although the city was certainly no place for an any kind of rest cure.
One look at the man’s face had driven all those thoughts from Oscar’s mind. One look at the man’s eyes had scared him silly. He spent most of the trip trying not to remember all the stories his grandmother had told him, about the fairy folk - and how most of them didn’t end well.
//Red eyes, I swear. I swear they’re red. No streetlight can cast such a shade.//
As if listening to his thoughts, the slim figure glanced up as the taller man helped him from the coach. Amused eyes peered out at him from behind small, dark, circular frames - and yes, they certainly were red. He stepped out of the carriage gracefully, long coat swooping rather dramatically around him. No hesitant steps, no sign of illness. If he wasn’t one of the fey, Oscar would gladly make a meal of his hat.
The tall blonde seemed to notice his discomfort, turned to give the pale man a quick glare that seemed more amused than angry - were /either/ of them human?
//I’ve been carting around spirits all night.//
He knew he was going to tell someone - he could never silence a good story - and then he’d never hear the end of it. Spirit or not, though, he was still handed a fair tip for his troubles. The man seemed to notice his hesitant mood, and didn’t even require his help dragging the trunk toward the stairs. Oscar decided to cut his losses and /not/ ask if the money would vanish come morning, gladly returning himself, his horse and carriage back to the anonymous street.
----------------------
“I think you scared him half to death.” Eike grimaced, rubbing at his shoulder, glancing briefly up the narrow staircase before deciding that the trunk would make a lovely table for the hall, and he could probably unpack it over the course of several days.
If they were staying here that long. As if the djinn ever told him what was going to happen next.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You don’t need to do anything, and you know it. I mean...” He gestured, because they’d already had this argument, and Homunculus had already said what he was about to say again.
“I like this form, thank you. I’ve grown accustomed to it, it works much better now that I’m not afraid I’ll chip myself with every sudden movement. I don’t care to go to the all the trouble of thinking up a new one. It isn’t as easy as just wishing it different, I have habits too, you know.”
Eike didn’t bother to answer, knew he was mostly just grumpy from the cold and the long night. It wasn’t as if Homunculus couldn’t deal with any problems that might arrive over his... unique appearance. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have every avenue ever, the entire universe at their disposal.
The thought always gave him pause, and was just slightly too intimidating, too big for him to think about for long.
“So,” Eike muttered, unwinding a pale scarf and tossing it on an empty hook in the foyer. An armoire - so the place was at least half-furnished, maybe more so. He hadn’t bothered, or more precisely Homunculus hadn’t bothered with the details before purchasing the place. “Will you tell me what we’re doing here /now/?”
Homunculus didn’t look any less unreal in different clothes than he did normally. If anything, the habit of peering out over the tops of his glasses made him look more evil. No doubt, he’d planned it that way.
“Maybe I just enjoy how you look in that suit. The style of this time really does favor you.”
Eike grimaced - not blushing, /not/ blushing even a little bit - and hung his hat, reaching out a hand for the djinn’s without even asking, hanging it on the hook at the opposite side of a full-length mirror.
“You just needed a valet, right? Nice immortal valet Eike, complete with accessories.”
He fumbled a bit in the dimness of the light reflected from outside, wondering if he could make it to the kitchen, find the matches - if there were any matches - when he heard a soft sound behind him, Homunculus murmuring a word, flicking his hand out. Light, in every room, and though some of it came from candles, there seemed to be no source for a few flickering flames. Eike didn’t bother nitpicking reality, there were many things it was better to just ignore.
“Where are you going?”
The djinn moved so silently, Eike had only noticed by accident when the pale man took to the stairs. Homunculus didn’t answer, and eventually he just sighed, following after him. The runner on the stairs was plush, quite nice, and he passed a few more fixtures, signs that someone had thought to make the place look at least a little lived in. It might have even been Homunculus. The djinn did occasionally remember human ‘luxuries’ like furniture and heat - though not so much of the second, Eike thought, rubbing briskly at his arms.
“So?” He followed the djinn into a small study, found Homunculus silhouetted against the window, the room dark around him.
“I thought you wanted to see why we were here.” The djinn gestured out, to the window directly across from where they stood. The curtains hadn’t been drawn, and a woman was busying herself with laundry, tidying up the small space with a pinched, tight expression that left Eike assuming the cleaning was more distraction than necessity. He wasn’t so surprised to see her begin to weep, stifling sobs that shook her shoulders as she pressed a hand to her mouth, shoulders bowed.
“She lost a child, miscarried, just a short time ago. Her husband was... indelicately upset. Do you see the desk?”
It would be just like the djinn, witnessing a moment of human misery, to notice what was in the background. Eike nodded slightly.
“She’s a writer, unpublished. She keeps the document hidden in the top drawer. A mystery. Quite good. It isn’t finished. It never will be. In three weeks, five days, she hangs herself in a closet downstairs. I’ve never found a reality in which she survives, and I get to find out about the ending.”
“You... how do you even know about-” Eike stopped himself, that was the lesser of two questions. “You brought me all the way back here to stop some woman from spoiling your reading material?”
“... and seeing you in that suit, of course. Don’t sell yourself so short, Eike.” The amusement in the djinn’s voice could have been laid on with a trowel. Eike didn’t bother trying to stop the frustrated growl that rose in his throat, turning on one heel.
“Nothing in the fridge, sorry to say.” Homunculus called after him. He’d already had plenty of opportunity to notice how Eike tended to eat when he was annoyed.
“I’ll be /out/ then!” Eike yelled back, winding his scarf around his neck as he slammed the door. Homunculus knew him too well to take his irritation seriously, and Eike could feel the demon’s teasing smile follow him all the way up the street.
---------------------------
Later, much later, Eike was curled in bed - thankfully there was a bed - trying to convince his body to make it through the interim between freezing cold blankets and a bit of trapped body heat. The house was still and silent around him, frigid as an icebox even with a fire banking in the hearth at the other end of the room. After this task was done, he was definitely going to convince Homunculus to get them to a time with better central heating.
The djinn was nowhere to be seen, hadn’t been around when Eike had returned from dinner. It wasn’t so surprising, the creature didn’t leave him for very long but he did take many small trips, wandering anytime Eike was doing anything the djinn would have classified as ‘boring’. Eike still slept well enough, it was difficult to be afraid of much with a demon on his side.
He knew he was still losing time. It happened in smaller amounts now, and in a different way. Eike could still remember most of the details of their recent adventures, the other Eike, and before that, finding out he was Wagner, and all that had happened - but much of it seemed leeched of emotion, bare fact and little more. He was slightly ashamed that he felt grateful, that thinking of Margarete no longer hurt.
//You’d go crazy for certain, that many years of memories, on top of whatever comes next.// It wasn’t so important, really. Memories were just a way of telling himself who he was, where he’d been, and once he felt safe in knowing that, everything else had all had managed to balance out inside his head.
So far, his life was mostly a matter of following Homunculus’ lead. The djinn seemed to have no end of small tasks for Eike to perform in this era and that. He doubted he was all that useful to the djinn, really, but he wasn’t going to argue. It was fascinating, moving into different moments through time, witnessing changes both big and small depending on where he ended up - and most of the places he ended up seemed to be lulls, spans of time where nothing so momentous or historical had happened. Eike knew he had a mass of questions he meant to ask Homunculus eventually - the nature of time, the beginnings and endings - but for now he was willing to just enjoy himself.
//It’s a vacation, maybe for the both of us.// He could hardly imagine what Homunculus thought of as ‘normal,’ but this would work for now.
//The woman, though... I’ve got to save her life for a story?//
The fact that he didn’t find it an odd request made him smile. He knew Homunculus must have been smirking when he came up with it, it was quite a challenge... and the djinn had to know it wouldn’t just be about the book. Had to know Eike wouldn’t be able to watch her cry and feel nothing. Eike finally fell asleep, still pondering what he might be able to do. Assured he could help her, determined that somehow he’d set it right.
-------------------------
It was a matter of sleeping as still as possible, trapping as much body heat as he could beneath a sandwich of quilts. Eike still woke up as something warm and heavy shifted next to him, Homunculus curving against his body, on top of the blankets, stretching out like a very large, extremely lazy cat. Eike sighed, it was a little frustrating being woken up, but the djinn was quite warm.
“What time is it?”
A musing little sound was all the answer he got - typical, although he really did have to stop asking the question.
//Not my fault, him waking me up...’m no good like this.// Eike blinked in the darkness, a silence that marked quite particularly the middle of the night. Homunculus was inquisitively flicking at the top of his ear.
“You can cut that out at /any time/.”
“Grumpy.” No malice in it. It wasn’t the first time Homunculus had done something like this, alternately aloof and affectionate in turn, trying it out with an almost clinical curiosity. Testing, the affection was there but, having no prior use for it, the djinn wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
No kissing yet, that was fairly obvious, not that he really cared. Watching Homunculus puzzle things out was much more interesting than instigating anything himself, and hell, it was the middle of the night and even if these jaunts through time wouldn’t kill him he was still tired and -
A pale finger brushed against his ear again, and Eike pulled the covers up over his head.
“If you keep this up, you’ll get sick of me before I even get you your book, you know.” Immature, the way he was bundled up, but Eike didn’t really care. “I’m surprised you stay here. It must be nicer for you, in your own space.”
“I don’t have it any more.”
Eike blinked, that mild statement enough to pry him out of the blankets, turning over to look at the djinn. “You don’t have it?”
The djinn had moved, sitting on the edge of the bed now. It wasn’t until Eike had been around Homunculus for such a long time in peaceful circumstances that he realized just how much time the djinn spent in motion, not frantically so, but just never keeping in any one place for very long.
“I suppose I could create it again, if I really wanted to, but with my body a bit more... sturdy.” He frowned, the vaguest hint of something dangerous flickering in the ruby eyes. “You don’t want me here?”
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that at all.” Eike reached out before he could stop himself, nestling the back of his hand in the curve between the pale man’s jaw and neck, wondering if it was at all the right move to make. Slowly, the djinn lifted a hand to his, a strange sort of curious look on his face, even if he wouldn’t meet Eike’s eyes, wouldn’t even turn to him.
“... thank you, Eike.” Soft, but full of meaning, and Eike had long ago realized what the value of a demon’s thanks would mean... even if he never thought he’d be here now, every step he took seeming so different from the last.
“I was glad to. I’ll always be glad to.” He dropped his hand as Homunculus shifted away, standing up. Eike took a moment to admire his pale profile in the firelight, before yawning and dropping back on the bed, pulling up covers still warm from the creature’s unnatural heat.
“You need anything?”
“I think I’ll just sit here for a bit, and watch the fire.” The way Homunculus said it made it sound like he’d be visiting with old friends. Eike nodded slightly, shifting into a comfortable position, just enough to keep an eye on... his servant? Creation? Friend? Most of the terms were useless, lies at best, and even the ones that came close seemed distinctly lacking.
He was content, for the moment, to ignore the scientist in him, still trying to madly pin things down, make sense of what was so utterly and completely inexplicable. He was who he was, Homunculus was something else entirely... and if he needed something more specific than that, he supposed he had an eternity to find it.
~end