Nex arrived home before his dorm mates. The professors had given the Paladins an extended holiday, and the lads were enjoying themselves for as many hours as they could.
Nex spent what time he could with Aisha. Precious creature, she had bared her fangs at him when they first met - not that he had acted gentlemanly around her or her friends. He sneered often, and his tongue cut with sardonic precision. His behaviour derived from being reserved, though, having no one to trust since he had lost track of the only person whom he had trusted.
Pulling a small, wooden box from one of his dresser drawers, Nex opened it and removed a folded folio. Brilliant flowers, lined with gold and silver paint, bordered the page, and in the center, amid wild trees and bushes, stood two boys: one with hair the color of Persian roses, the other with hair the shade of silver Roman coins. They each had gold eyes, which betrayed their supernatural heritage, and each wore two earrings in the left ear alone. The boys were merry-making, which in real life, they had little time to do.
Beneath the boys, in delicate nesih, read the inscription:
"Dear is my brother, Ölüm. God always forbid the worst befall him."
Nex gazed at his brother's message. The worst had befallen them. Their father had sold them into slavery many centuries ago, unable to feed the ten mouths in their household on his meager wages. Just his luck, Nex had gone to a fairy that had happened to live on another planet and had just happened to be passing through Earth, looking for a special little servant.
She had no money to buy two shape-shifters, but Nex had been enough for her.
Glancing up from his memories, he glared at the photograph of him and Aisha in the periwinkle frame.
Fairies… Damned fairies! They had made Duman break his promise to his little brother. Duman had always joked that only a nasty, old fairy could get them to part. What a self-fulfilling prophecy that had been… In honesty, not all fairies were cruel; Aisha was proof of that -
- but 'not all…' means nothing when enough of them gathered to oppress those who were not their kind.
And to worsen the injury, she had finally told him what her deceased beloved had done.
"Nabu managed to defeat one of the wizards - some nasty little shape-shifter named Duman…"
Nex had refused to believe that was his brother. Then again, not many shape-shifters strode about the many dimensions with Ottoman names.
"What'd you mean by 'nasty'?" he had pried. "What'd he look like? An ogre?"
He had tried to conceal his reaction with little avail. He had collapsed on his knees as they were strolling on the pier, beneath the starry earthling sky (had those same stars witnessed his brother's murder?). Nex had blamed some mineral deficiency on his behaviour and dismissed himself for the rest of their date.
He was nauseous with grief, head spinning with anger.
"Ağabeyin…"
The human hand that ran over the image of the rose-haired boy cracked and stretched as it morphed into a hideous claw. A leonine roar startled and awoke the Paladins whom had not departed for celebrations.
Nex needed all the more strength to maintain his charade of a relationship with the fairy and her comrades. After years of abuse and centuries of wandering, changing his appearance and name, his vengeance depended on a cool head. Much of his strength had been spent, though, and now, with his source certainly perished, he knew the deception would soon crack.
Author Notes:
Smoke and Death (title) In Turkish, Duman means smoke, while Nex or Ölüm means death.
nesih (n.) calligraphy.
"Ağabeyin…" (n.) [big] brother.
Disclaimer: The author of this fanfiction makes no claim over the intellectual property of Ignio Straffi, and they do not make any profit from writing this fanfiction.