Story: A Touch of Color in the Gray

Book 1 : Shading the black.

Date : February 25, 2021

Beta: Fluffyluffy .

Fandom : D Gray Man

Disclaimer : No, I do not own D Gray Man and I am not making any profit from this story.

Summary : After waking up in the 19th century, Ennaèl takes the name Eve and became Tricia Kamelott's lady companion and decides to make her own opinion on the charac... people of this new world despite her knowledge of the manga. Little by little, she becomes aware of the social difference of women at this time and begins to fear for the future, especially when Road and the twins arrive ... Eve meets Allen, then Tyki and they sympathize. After having met the Earl in a rather ... awkward situation, shall we say, Eve takes it upon herself to flee him like the plague, leading her, in spite of herself, to make a trip to Paris with Tyki where she meets Victor Hugo who passes a lot of information on the holy war before dying. Eve discovers a strange talent for musical instruments and wonders with horror if she would not be the 14th. It doesn't help that the Earl has discovered her talents and seems to be more and more interested in her. Eve receives a letter from Allen who tells her about her friend Narein and decides, for the first time, to influence the story on purpose. She then meets Lulubelle and then makes peace with the Earl. She argues with Tyki who fails to kill her with her Noah powers but hey, what's a little attempted murder between friends? They reconcile and all is well in the best of all possible worlds. No one is talking about the fact that Eve absolutely couldn't have missed the fact that Tyki has powers though. She becomes buddies with Arthur Doyles and in the last chapter she almost died by falling into an icy lake but fortunately, Tyki rescued her. By using his powers, though, so Eve is kinda screwed now.

French version: ...FINISHED !

English version: A moment of silence for Lyra, AxZi, Koneko and Nouilleverte our wonderful past-Beta.

Fanart: You can see drawings of Eve and some fanart made by readers on my Tumblr (Ennael too). Also, Elogane made a canon side-fic but in french, It's "Nuancer les sentiments"

Italic: french, important thought (or both)

Guess who FINALLY begin a calendar for this fic while reading it all to try to see where to add excrept I never succeed to put in ? Yep, it's me ! Firsts chapters were easy since I actually wrote the dates but I stoped at arround chapter 15 and it's a pain to read it all up to find the time clues... Even more since it actually make sense so I did it right while writing it... Why didn't I do it at the time ?!

Good Reading !

All in all, I must admit that I did not do too badly. Yeah, I had fallen into an icy lake and the thirty minutes to walk back to the mansion and sneak up to Road's room while the twins were distracting the others had not been fun. But, hey! I was not dead! And that was only my third (or fourth?) Nearly death this year! And hopefully this would be the last one I thought, as I was enjoying a hot bath far too rarely for my liking, considering the New Year was less than a week away.

Except that…

Tyki had saved me with his powers without any further pretense.

I couldn't even pretend I hadn't seen anything this time as Tyki had carried me to the lake shore, literally floating ten centimeters above the water. Even if they thought I was stupid, there was no way they would believe I was that stupid… or at least I hope so, it would hurt my pride otherwise. But hey, at least I could be reassured on that point, seeing the looks and failed conversation attempts on the way home as I tried not to fall into a coma from must have had a little respect for me.

So I was there, wondering if I should drown in my bath (at least the water was hot) rather than confronting the Noahs for what was gonna be, at best, a very embarrassing conversation or at worst, my very dramatic death... when there was a knock on the door. It was Road that whirled around inside without any consideration for my modesty (so admittedly, for the time I didn't have a lot of it but still… Road…) to put down clothes with a disappointed pout and a remark very clear that we would go to the tailor very soon (and wow, déjà-vu, here).

"And hurry up, Mother is starting to be suspicious that the twins have come home alone when it is almost dinner time" She said, taking a large fluffy towel out of the dresser.

A little more reassured that she hadn't started talking about Tyki's powers right away, I was moaning, "Can't we just say I caught a cold? That way I can go to my room."

"You're kidding me ?" Road exclaimed, looking at me in disbelief. "With what happened last month, if you pretend to be sick, mother won't let you leave your room until the epiphany!"

"Road, there's no way I won't get sick after falling in an icy lake." I answered her by rolling my eyes.

"Well you aren't for now so until then, get out of here quickly so we can go to dinner. I promise I'll make an apology for you if you really start to feel bad." She replied as she made her way to her bedroom.

"I'm taking dinner with you?" I was surprised.

"Of course." She said simply before continuing in front of my surprised look. "Eve, you celebrated Christmas with us, as a family, don't think you'll be able to get away from family dinner now."

Annnnd... she left.

Stumbling out of the bath and getting ready in a confused haze, I let Road braid my hair in deep thought. But when I shyly showed up to dinner just behind Road, I realized that she was in fact right. A plate was there for me, next to Tyki and instead of the Earl looking at me strangely or Sheryl throwing me away with a stern frown, Tricia immediately began to wonder how the afternoon had gone as the other adults discussed politics.

I felt like I had passed a test and passed it damn well. It was terribly strange, but it felt good to feel totally accepted. I was in my place, I was meant to be there and not just a guilty pleasure Sheryl was letting his wife have.

This revelation didn't stop me from trying to dodge Tyki and the twins' questioning attempts however, and I miraculously managed to hold out for two days before Tyki finally caught me in the library.

"Are you done with avoiding me?" He asked annoyed as I leaned further against the shelf, pathetically pretending to be looking for a novel.

"I'm not avoiding you…" I replied, staring intently at a book whose title I couldn't even read. "I was just looking for a book. Actually, I'm a little busy and…"

"Eve, you are in the Portuguese section." He interrupted me with a flat look and I was pretty sure I was blushing with shame.

"... I thought I could learn." I mumbled desperately as I grabbed the book in question.

"And I would love to teach you. You know I have every confidence in you, but I doubt you can do it on your own with such a dry treatise on anatomy as a learning aid." He scoffed and I looked down at the book in my hands to find, indeed, a diagram of the human body on the cover. Slowly putting the book down, I turned to him with a defeat sigh. He still crossed his arms over his chest, clearly unimpressed by my attempts to escape.

"Well, what is it?" I asked and he raised an eyebrow in response. But when I met his gaze without blinking, he unfolded his arms and took a more nervous posture. It reassured me a little to tell myself that I was not the only one dreading this conversation.

"I wanted to talk about what happened… at the lake." He said running his fingers through his hair, destroying his perfect hairstyle. Oh. He handed me a pole that was far too tempting! No accusation and a dodging of the subject? I just wanted to tease him a bit now.

"Ho, you mean about why next time you should listen to me when I tell you it's a bad idea to jump on a frozen lake?" I answered innocently and he rolled his eyes.

"Hey, you're the only one who fell, we were doing great." He replied and I gave him a clearly unimpressed look in response. "But no, I meant… well I wanted to talk about what happened after…"

"Oh, you mean when we had to sneak into the mansion?" I blinked and he stared at me with a flat stare.

"...You're do it on purpose." He sighed and despite the strange and potentially dangerous conversation, I smile, far too happy to see him even more uncomfortable than me. "My powers, I mean my powers." He finally spat with an exasperated look.

"Okay." I answered and waited patiently for him to continue.

"...so ?" He finally said when I just looked at him without saying anything.

"So what ?" I wondered, wondering how much longer I could get out of this before he slipped through the floor in frustration.

"Doesn't that make you… scared?" He finally asked and he was so uncomfortable I almost wanted to hug him to reassure him.

"Honestly Tyki, I maybe was before, but you're so not discreet that I've gotten used to it a long time ago… although it's always funny to see you slipping through your chair when Road jumps on you." I replied, relieved that he was more worried about my reaction than anything else.

"Why haven't you mentioned it, then? And avoided me the last few days?" He asked a little painfully after having winced at the anecdote of the chair.

"I thought it was some kind of big secret that I wasn't supposed to know…" I answered honestly. "So I thought if I pretend I haven't seen anything, neither of us should take care of the problem."

"Oh." He mumbled, blinking like an owl before laughing softly. "I owe you a lot of apologies then, it must have been hard to pretend when I knocked you out not on purpose at the ball and then this time…"

"What?" I interrupted him.

"What?" he repeated confusedly.

"You knocked me out at the ball?" I asked him, confused.

"I thought you said you knew it." He exclaimed before looking at me suspiciously. "Did you just bluff me?"

"No, no, I knew you had powers, you'd have to be really blind not to notice, but I thought I passed out from the corset!" I answered before taking an understanding air. "That's why Lord Kamelott didn't make a big deal out of it! I really thought he was going to cut me alive when I woke up after breaking one of his sacrosanct rules of politeness… but it was actually your fault! " I almost screamed happily while pointing at him.

"Sorry, sorry." He smiles, protecting himself softly with his hands before his lips suddenly falls in a frown. "And I'm so sorry for what happened in the forest, I got angry and lost control and if Road hadn't arrived I really could have… hurt you." He admitted and I felt touched that he thought about it and took the trouble to apologize.

I was on the verge of brushing it all aside with a smile and saying I couldn't see what he was talking about when I really saw his eyes and closed my lips. He had been honest with me, he didn't need to say it and I think I owed him at least to return the favor.

"I… you really scared me then." I admitted. "But you didn't hurt me after all and I was just as wrong with what I told you so… let's not stay on 'what if' we've both already apologized, no need to start over. " I whispered and he nodded softly.

And we were there. Two emotional idiots in the library not knowing what to say. Time seemed infinitely long all of a sudden and I even rack my brains, I didn't know how to put it to free us from the heavy atmosphere. Unless maybe…

"So what can you do?" I suddenly asked, raising my head. Surprised, he blinked in my direction, clearly not understanding my question. "Your powers? I was a little ... busy the times you really used them and I didn't quite get it. Can you fly? Pass through objects? Take out the air? I can't see too much logic in there. " I continued, exaggerating my questions a bit but not my interest. As usual, I knew a bit from the manga, but it was always more impressive to see it in person.

"You are the only one to look for logic in powers instead of running out screaming." Tyki laughed and I wanted to contradict him, it was a perfectly sensible reaction for a human drunk on 21st century superhero movies but, again… It was some 150 years too early for that. "I can actually manipulate matter, so I don't fly, it's more like I'm walking on air." He explained, literally taking a step in the air and pulling himself up on ... nothing. "And I can go through anything, not just objects." He said proudly, dropping to the ground and then passing his hand through my arm. My eyes too big, I watched his fingers brush my skin without feeling it and it was the strangest sensation in the world. It was as if my brain couldn't match what I saw and what I felt and my skin was itching in a phantom pain where his hand had probably passed through my muscles.

Even though I knew it theoretically, it was still terribly terrifying in practice, and I couldn't even imagine what Allen must have felt when Tyki had… or will have? anyway, when he had planted his hand in his chest.

Refraining from telling him that he couldn't, in fact, phase through all things, I let some of my fear escape instead. "Please don't ever do that again." I whispered with a shudder. "It's very disturbing." I grimaced and he chuckled in response forcing me to flick his arm punitively. Terribly ineffective against Noahs, it's true, but still very satisfying, especially when they bother to rub their arm with exaggerated imitation of pain in response. "What about what happened at the ball? How did you get the air out?"

"Ah that…" He said looking embarrassed. "It was not done on purpose, in fact, it was the first time that it happened to me and I did not understand what I had done at the beginning, it is Adam who…" He said before to cut himself suddenly and to look at me with an air of panic.

"Was it the Duke who guessed what you had done?" I said lightly and Tyki relaxed at my non-reaction. Clearly, he hadn't planned on involving anyone else besides himself in this little chat.

"Yes. But I've never managed to reproduce it since… well, not intentionally…" He said avoiding my gaze and, well, since I was still having nightmares from the whole bike debacle, I understood the feeling.

"So it's like... you manipulate the atoms? You group them together when you want to walk on them, spread them apart when you want to pass through an object, and push the oxygen away when you remove the air… or something like that." I shrug my shoulders. The physics lessons were years ago and I admitted without much shame that there was not much left of it in my brain.

"... Atoms?" Tyki asked confusedly and I looked at him with blank eyes.

... don't tell me atoms weren't discovered? Oh, maybe it wasn't the same word back then! I felt like it was the whole story of Road's math homework starting over again, she had looked at me extremely weird when I hadn't been able to do basic mental arithmetic but showed her a technique for solving multiplications which, it seems, had not yet been invented.

Oops.

"Atoms are what make up everything… I think… maybe… do you think there are physics books here?" I asked a little disturbed.

There were, in fact, physics books in the library but very few and half overwritten by the dozens of theological books which easily explained why I had never seen them before. Sheryl and Tricia having taken it upon themselves to slip religious books into my room to fill my glaring lack of knowledge, I had never considered a more intense study of the subject necessary and had largely avoided this section of the library.

Unfortunately, the books were terribly old and were about biology more than anything else, although some paragraphs on the laws of gravity gave me hope for deeper concepts in other books. So it was leafing through a pile of science books that the Earl found us in the library a few hours later.

"What are you two doing? It's tea time." He told us before heading towards us to take a curious glance at the rickety pile of books that barely held on the table where we had settled.

"We were looking for books on physics." Tyki explained, closing the book in front of him with a sigh.

"You, Tyki?" The Earl asked in disbelief and Tyki gave him a playful hurt look.

"Eve had an interesting idea." He finally admitted under the doubtful gaze of the Earl. "But there is hardly anything here." He complained as I got up to start putting the science books away.

"You should come over to my house, I might have what you need." The Earl proposed and I stopped for a second to look at him strangely. The Earl had a house? like a manor? Wow,I was so sure he lived in the Ark and squatted with other Noah's when he needed to… But now that I thought about it, Adam Campbell was a respected Duke of society, even a short ball and a few Mass meetings had been enough to make me understand that. So obviously he had to have a mansion and even a territory.

"Yes of course !" Tyki exclaimed before suddenly turning to me. "You'll love it, Eve, the library is at least three times the size of here." He smiled excitedly and I looked at him with wide eyes. I already found the size of the Kamelot's one frankly excessive for the use of a small noble family but three times bigger than that… Oh, I wanted to see that! In addition, after two years of scouring the place daily, I had to admit that I had more or less already devoured each book that attracted me a little ...

Seeing my sparkling eyes, the Earl laughed softly before placing a hand on each of our shoulders. "Come on kids, we'll see the details later. We better go downstairs for tea, we shouldn't keep Tricia waiting."

Tricia, in fact, was ecstatic about our plan to go see the Earl's mansion. She seemed less enthusiastic about the library and more about his works of art, however. It would seem that the Earl had a pretty impressive personal collection and Tricia was eager to see the new pieces. She kept talking about it all the end of the afternoon, babbling with the Earl about the logistical details and even when we sat down to dinner, she kept talking about it. As I listened to Tricia arguing with Sheryl, I thought to myself that I had never seen so many people at this table. There was the whole Noah family, or at least everyone who had been introduced to me. The Earl, Sheryl, the twins, Road, Tyki and even Lulubell! In fact, even more extraordinarily, even Skin Bolic stood in the dining room, behind the Earl by the wall, dressed as a butler. He was so quiet, however, that I wasn't quite sure how long he had been there. I had just noticed him the day before when I saw Road slipping her candy to him out of the dining room and she told me his name when I asked who it was.

Besides the Noahs, there was obviously Tricia and I and it was starting to get quite crowded. Fortunately, with so many people, it was easy to separate the conversations and leave the adults (Tyki not included) to their boring chats and have fun in our corner. Moreover, because Sheryl and Tricia continued to argue throughout the meal and then again all evening in the small living room, to such an extent that Tricia missed her bedtime. Not daring to interrupt their cold war, I had to wait for them to come to a compromise so that I could accompany Tricia to bed and I was completely exhausted when I stumbled into my room. Unraveling my dress in a jiffy, I slipped on my nightgown casually before letting myself fall into the sheets, ready to sleep.

... Unfortunately, it looked like we had really taken too long to come back because the room which was usually pleasantly heated at bedtime was already starting to cool terribly. It was barely February and it was terribly cold at night. Looking sadly at the extinguished fire from under my comforter, I reached out a hand out of the sheets before snapping my fingers with an air of intense concentration. "Incendio"

Nothing.

I dropped my head onto the bed with a muffled moan. Of course I couldn't start a fire with my thought, but I don't know, with all this talk about Tyki's powers… being in DGM…

Sighing, I pulled myself up onto one elbow, mentally preparing myself to get out of bed when a new idea floated through my mind. Reaching out my hand to the hearth again, I squinted at the embers as I dug my brain. What were the words again? Abata, ura, mazar… massara? Yeah, something like that… If I had to use magic, I might as well use the one of this world! One foot halfway out of bed, preparing to step out after my failed new attempt, I mumbled the words as I stared at the fireplace.

"Abata… ura… masarakato… On!" I hissed while snapping my fingers at the last word.

Immediately, large orange flames erupted to life in the ark.

A second later, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

Well shit… Two years that I was there… maybe I should have thought of testing this earlier…

Hoooo, look who is FINALLY getting her SI powers ? X') I swear there is a reason for it ! It was planned from chap 1 :3

Anyway, think about reviews and see yah next time !