History: A Touch of Colour in the Gray

Book 1: Shading the black.

Date: 25 January 2019, corrected in January 2022

Beta: Nooooone

Fandom: D Gray Man

Disclaimer: No, I don't own D Gray Man and I'm not making any money on this story.

Summary: After landing in the 19th century, Estelle quickly realizes that she has been hired by the Kamelott family, basically the villains of DGM. Taking the name Eve, she then becomes Tricia Kamelott's lady-in-waiting and helps her with her daily tasks. Now that her life is a little less chaotic, Eve reflects on her arrival in this world and decides to make up her own mind about the people in this new world despite her knowledge of manga. However, she soon becomes aware of the social difference between women at that time and starts to fear for her future, especially when Road and the twins arrive... Deciding to visit London, Eve meets Allen, then Tyki, and they become friends. A few days later, the three separated. But not for very long as far as Eve and Tyki are concerned.

Chapter Trigger: Racism of the time (but like really strong, we'll talk about the Colonial Exhibition if that tells you anything...)

I didn't even write the objective of this chapter X) I don't know why, this idea popped up in the middle... but it's not so bad, it allows us to see a new evolution in Eve's beliefs and her relationship with Tyki. But, well… it's not a realy happy chapter so…

Errr…yeah, just… try to enjoy your reading!

Chapter 16: A visit to Paris

Friday 8 May 1885

"Excuse me?!" I squeaked in a much higher than normal voice, my book abandoned in favour of staring at my companion with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"Duke Campbell is coming to visit us this week?" repeated Tyki, but this time in the form of a question following my earlier reaction.

"But..." I almost groan, my eyes falling to my lap with a lost look. "He hasn't been here for at least four months and all of a sudden he comes twice in a fortnight?"

Tyki gave me a strange look at that. "I don't understand why you want to run away from him so much... People usually like him. Hell, they'd be able to trust him with their dead!" He said with a small laugh at his own private joke which, fuck me, I understood too.

"He makes me uncomfortable." I replied, resting my head in one hand and staring into the fire, blankly. The understatement of the century, seriously...Tyki hummed in response before turning back to his own book.

Suddenly, with a BAM! crashing through the door, a small fury sprinted into the room, zigzagging between the shelves before pouncing on the back of Tyki's chair, knocking his head in the process. "I'm home!" Road sang as her uncle hissed, rubbing his head in pain. Planting a soft kiss in Tyki's curly hair, she dropped from the backrest to come skipping over to me and greeted me with a quick hug. "Welcome home." I replied with a smile as I hugged her back.

"Hey! Why don't I get a hug like Eve?" Tyki suddenly asked with a slightly envious but mostly amused tone.

"But I hugged you!" Replied the girl with a face far too innocent to be truthful. "Do you want another one?" She asked as she slowly approached her uncle with a psychotic smile that didn't bode well.

"Um, no, thank you." Tyki replied nervously, somewhat tense in his chair, ready to rise at the slightest threat. Pouting at his answer, Road groaned and crossed her arms before dropping to the floor on the fluffy carpet between our two chairs. Trying to defuse the situation, I offered to play something and she immediately jumped to her feet with a big smile before running out of the room, shouting at me to wait where I was.

"I have a feeling I've just been totally manipulated." I huffed, blinking as Tyki sent me a disillusioned look.

"Well, that's nice and all, but I have some paperwork to finish, so I'd better get going." He said suddenly before closing his book and getting up to rush out of the library.

"Oh no, you're not leaving me alone with your niece!" I replied at once, standing up quickly, even though everything was against me, whether it was my rank, his position in the room or my physical abilities.

"Oh, come on, it's not the little beast that's going to eat the big one." He replied with a quick glance in the direction of the door.

"That's the problem." I replied as I moved closer to the door, and thus, to him. "I'm absolutely certain I'm not the big beast here."

Before he could reply, Road came into the room, a pile of dolls and cuddly toys clutched in her arms. Passing her uncle, she threw one at him and then sat on the carpet in front of the fireplace, staring at us, waiting for us to join her. Sighing, Tyki put down his book and came to sit beside him with the most bored look on his face and I soon joined them with a chuckle.

The evening passed quietly enough. Tyki and I played with Road for a good hour before we had to wake Tricia for tea and then I left them to have dinner as a family while I went back to my room to draw. In fact, it was so quiet that the whole Duke Campbell thing went completely out of my head, at least until the next day.

This lunchtime, Sheryl was out as usual negotiating with some nobleman or other. I was eating with all the family except him when Tricia cheerfully told us that the Duke would be coming for tea this week. "I hope I can introduce you properly this time, Eve, the Duke is very kind and doesn't attach much importance to rank, I'm sure you'll get on very well". The lady of the house added as she delicately cut the piece of beef from her plate and, okay, maybe I was extrapolating too much, but it almost sounded like a threat to me!

Putting down my cutlery slowly to give myself time to think of an intelligent answer, my brain came up with nothing concrete. Unfortunately, I had to speak as soon as possible and I said the first thing that came to mind. "Oh, Tricia, I forgot to tell you! I was thinking of going on a little trip very soon, as you seemed to be doing well lately and Lord Kamelott had mentioned it to me earlier..." I said evasively. Actually, it was true. Last week, Sheryl had called me into his office for a debriefing of sorts and told me I could take days off as I hadn't been away on public holidays or Easter unlike the other servants. Of course, at the time I didn't really care, it's not like I had anywhere else to be and I didn't need days off either.

Now, however, this proposal felt like a lifeboat, especially since I knew that Sheryl would undoubtedly support my proposal. If only to get me away from his wife and her much less hidden tendencies lately to want to set me up with her brother-in-law.

"Oh, really?" She said with a disappointed look before adopting a more contemplative one. "It's true that you haven't taken a single day off since you came to the manor! You even work on Sundays, yes that would do you good. Where do you plan to go?" she asked curiously.

Feeling my smile freeze, I had to restrain myself from looking at Tyki when he coughed into his napkin to hide a laugh. "Ah, I was thinking of taking a trip to France..." I said vaguely, praying that she would let go. Unfortunately, her smile was still focused on me and, clearly waiting for the next part, I glanced around for an idea.

Then, miraculously, my eyes fell on the crumpled day's paper on the chair beside me, surely a remnant of the inadvertently forgotten breakfast. The words 'Victor Hugo' jumped out at me and I turned sharply towards Tricia, trying to downplay my air of satisfaction.

"Actually, I wanted to go and see a bit of Paris and go to the exhibition of Victor Hugo's works." I replied before adding as seriously as I could to try and sell the story. "I'm a big fan."

"Oh yes what a good idea!" Tricia exclaimed before putting on a happy face that made me immediately squint with suspicion. "Paris, the city of lovers..." she murmured, and if I hadn't been paying attention, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have heard her. But I was paying attention and had to restrain myself from groaning loudly at her words. For sure, she was going to try to push Tyki and me together again. Ever since the idea had popped into her head the day we got Allen's letter, she'd just kept bringing it up.

Every. Single. Days.

So much so that it became a game with Tyki of who could change the subject as quickly as possible and without her noticing. Unfortunately, Road had taken it into her head to be on the other team and was giving us a hard time... I didn't even know why they were trying so hard, it's not like it was socially possible anyway.

"Oh, but Eve, I'm worried, it's not safe for a young girl to travel alone... As your employer, I definitely can't let you go!" Tricia added with a dramatic pause, staring at us, waiting for me to take the bait.

Struggling to keep my eyes from rising to the sky, I gave her a dry smile and begged her to let me go.

Unfortunately, she had every right to refuse me the trip. On the one hand, because she was in charge of giving me my leave, but mainly because in those days women were minors all their lives. Even I, an orphan with no family or friends, was not allowed to make my own decisions, they were left to my boss, even if he was a complete stranger. And it wasn't because I was a minor. Sure, it didn't help my case, but whether I was 18 or 21, I would still have been subject to Sheryl's decisions. Luckily, then, we didn't get along so badly, and he was respectful enough, or rather disdainful enough of the human race, not to ask me for anything... unpleasant.

"But I guess I'd feel pretty safe if someone came with you..." Tricia continued with an innocent look on her face before turning to Tyki as if she'd just miraculously gotten the idea. "Oh but thinking about it, you don't have any plans next week, do you Tyki? Why don't you accompany Eve to France? It would be a chance to see that beautiful country!"

"I'm not sure that..." Tyki began to answer with a contrite look on his face, trying to shrug off the trip under my half-encouraged, half-amused expression. However, he couldn't even get a full sentence out when Road immediately cut him off. As usual, the twins had suddenly fallen silent, uncomfortable, when the subject had come up and Road had assessed the situation, waiting for the best (or worst, really) moment to participate.

"I think it's an excellent idea on the contrary." She said delicately with an overly large smile. "Yes, it's perfect, Dad was complaining that you weren't getting out of the manor enough, and what better place to socialise than Paris? Especially in pleasant company." She said, glancing at me sharply as if we hadn't understood the point of all this wonderful conversation.

Exchanging glances with Tyki, I felt that the whole thing was slipping through my fingers. Quite frankly, Victor Hugo was a complete joke. Oh, sure, he was a great man and if I wasn't a fan of all his stories, I certainly didn't hate them. At least in my other life as a 21st century high school student. Now, stuck in a pseudo nineteenth century, without a single fantasy story from the second millennium to sink my teeth into, his stories were downright enjoyable, a nice alternative to drawing when my hand was too sore to do so.

But then, I was a slacker at heart, so it wasn't for a little fad that I was going to cross the sea, especially in the 19th century and its not very comfortable and devilishly long trains. No, I had simply planned to travel to the next town and lock myself in an inn room with a sketchbook for the week.

But if Tricia was pushing Tyki on me, that plan was certainly no longer viable... Hell, now I wasn't even sure I could leave because Sheryl would never want me to take her brother for a week! Even with Tricia's torment, I wasn't sure it would pass... and I wasn't sure I wanted it either. With a glum look on my face, I wondered if it wasn't just easier to give up the trip and just call in sick when the Duke got back to the manor...

Unfortunately, this was no longer the case.

With the case in my hands, Tricia began to organize everything, even skipping her sacrosanct afternoon nap. By 5:00, when Sheryl returned home, she was waiting for her, a compiled file in her hands and Tyki and I two steps behind her, exhausted from our afternoon of chasing her. Much discussion later, involving Tyki and I curled up on a couch while Sheryl and Tricia eye-balled each other standing in front of us, Sheryl admitted defeat, but still extracted a few conditions.

Some of them were really nice, like the fact that I didn't have to prepare my trip at all, which would have been very laborious knowing that I didn't know how to manage without the internet... Another one was that I was currently in a first class carriage, two days after the conflict, and so I had missed mass once again, happily, in the flood of preparations for the trip. Unfortunately, other conditions were... disturbing. First of all, Tyki was with me, and even though I was quite happy not to have to go through two countries alone, especially since there was no stronger bodyguard... well, if he didn't want to kill you himself, of course, I was less happy about our third wheel.

They said we needed a chaperone.

Well, it's true that in those days, two young people from good families were not left alone together. Not until the wedding night anyway. And in itself, it wouldn't have really bothered me if that third wheel hadn't been... Elliot, you know, that robotic butler, who smelled like Akuma. That guy never blinked, hardly ate or drank, and kept his eyes fixed on me whenever we were in the same room! I had tried to change chaperone by pointing out that Eliott had just become steward, that he couldn't possibly leave the manor like that. Sheryl replied that Eliott had become steward because they trusted him the most. And therefore trusted him to take care of us. I had things to say to that logic but... well, not to Sheryl. So I'd just nodded and kept quiet, preferring to put up with it all rather than alienate Sheryl.

So, in the small, albeit much more comfortable, first class carriage, I couldn't help but squirm uncomfortably, my instincts screaming at me to jump out the window despite the moving train. For the record, I couldn't blame my mind... hell, it felt like the beginning of a macabre joke: So, it's a human, a Noah and an Akuma in a train car...

Anyway, one carriage, one train, one boat, another train and a second carriage later, we were finally in Paris! It took us a long day... we were far from the two hours of my XXIst century... Anyway, we arrived on Monday evening, I was completely exhausted, we had to take rooms in a hotel and I crashed in a bed until the morning. Fortunately, we had separate rooms, so Tyki was free to go out and play in the bad corners of Paris while I was snoozing. As for our... chaperone, he was staying at a slightly more down-market inn a few blocks away, and I was only relieved not to have his disturbing gaze fixed on me.

Still, when I think about it, it would be funny but also terribly awkward if it turned out that he was not, in fact, an akuma...

The next morning I woke up with difficulty because of the excessive brightness. I had been too tired the night before to close the blinds properly and my mistake was back in my face. Groaning, I rolled over onto my back to look at the ceiling with a sullen eye before sighing and spinning once more... only to hit the floor hard with my face.

Grunting, I unmotivatedly slid my hands underneath me to push myself up onto all fours. With my eyes still half closed and my legs still aching from the journey, I crawled almost half a metre before groping my way to the top of the bed and pulling myself up. Running a hand over my face and muttering profanities in the good old French slang of my day, I shuffled to the jug and poured water into the basin before carelessly taking the water in my hands and throwing it on my face. Poking around with squinted eyes to find the towel that was supposed to be placed not far from the basin, it was soon pressed into my hand with a "Here" and it was then that I realised with horror that Tyki had been in the room all through my morning routine.

White-faced, I took the towel with a thank you and wiped my face clean, using the moment to refocus. Putting the towel down with a sigh as I exceeded the time legally allotted for such an action, I turned to my travelling companion.

"I didn't hear you come in..." I accused him, annoyed, totally skipping the customary hello in the process. It's a bit scary to think that a Noah could watch you sleep without you knowing... and also my wake up routine hadn't been the most graceful either, I must admit.

"I knocked though, and as I heard your voice, I deduced that I could come in". He replied with a bored smile before turning to the small table in the corner of the room where there was a well-stocked lunch tray and an open newspaper. One of the plates was already half eaten and I asked him how long he had been there. When he replied "about fifteen minutes" I grimaced but said nothing. Yet I was itching to ask him where his manners had gone. Wasn't it a big no-no for a gentleman to break into a lady's room? You didn't have to be very clever to think that if you see someone sleeping you either wake them up or leave, you don't eat in their room and read the paper. We didn't even know each other that well!

Shaking my head, I sat down in front of the second plate and began to eat, uncomfortable. Again, I had been too tired the night before to do anything but collapse on the bed, so I was still in my old clothes. It was still less embarrassing than being in my nightgown but I wasn't exactly presentable. Saying goodbye to my remaining dignity, I ate as quickly as possible so that I could change immediately. Grabbing one of the outfits Tricia had forced into my suitcase ("Paris is the city of good taste, Eve, you can't go like that!") I changed in the bathroom in record time. Returning to the bedroom, I brushed my hair into a simple and effective braid. If necessary, it could easily be rolled up into a bun to accommodate a hat

"So..." I began, hooking a blue ribbon at the end of my braid before throwing it behind my shoulder. "Why are you already here?"

"Elliot hasn't picked us up yet so I thought we could leave now," he replied quietly.

"Shall we slip away?" I asked with a sly smile. "Are you tired of chaperoning already?" I teased him as I took my seat back at the table.

"Oh, come on, you've been awfully quiet the whole trip, admit it, you're afraid of him."

"Scared is not the word... He just makes me a little uncomfortable..." I defended myself, embarrassed.

"Like the Duke?" Tyki asked with a frown and I mumbled an awkward 'I guess'.

"Strange..." He muttered, his gaze fixed on me. "Anyway, you'll agree that he's not exactly good company, and no matter what my brother says, I certainly don't plan on staying with him for our entire visit to Paris." He said with a bored expression before a teasing smile stretched his lips. "Oh sure, if you're afraid to be alone with me..."

"No, that's fine! Let's do it that way." I said quickly, terribly relieved to no longer suffer from Elliot's company. At least I was used to being alone with Tyki at the manor. "We're here for four days." I continued as I stood up to observe the beautiful tapestry depicting Paris hanging next to the bathroom. "Any particular place in mind? Where do you want to go?" I asked curiously as I turned back to him. I was fairly familiar with the Haussmannian Paris of the 2000s, but while the structure shouldn't have changed too much, I wasn't too sure about the activities. I was pretty sure the Eiffel Tower was still under construction but I had no idea if the Tuileries Park was accessible or even if the Louvre was already a museum.

"We can just walk around for today." He says, sounding as motivated as I am, which is to say, really not much. "Afterwards, if you really want to do something, I heard there was a rather popular exhibition about the colonies at the bar last night."

I hummed in response, trying to find where we were on the map. "Do you know where this is?" I asked, placing my finger where our hotel should approximately be and trying to spot the nearest monuments.

"I can find out." He replied quietly before glancing unhappily at the unfolded newspaper beside him. "Do you think it would be possible to get something readable?

I gave him a strange look before understanding his dilemma. "Oh, you don't speak French at all?" I asked as I reached across the table to grab the newspaper. I let out a smile at the old-fashioned words on the page.

"Well, Sheryl made me take lessons, but I'm not very good." Tyki admitted with a grimace.

"I think you just didn't feel like it, that's all." I scoffed before dropping the paper. "Let's go before he comes to get us." We talked some more but everything was eventually settled amicably and I quickly guided Tyki into the city.

Honestly, everything went very well. It was even surprising, as I had been worried about being alone with him for so long. But in the end, we got along as well as usual and the walk was nice. Even if it's true that I could have done without his mockery. I knew how to find my way around 21st century Paris, yes, but mainly because it was lined with maps and metros! Otherwise, I didn't go there that often, so I had no way of finding my way around by street name alone. Hell, the metro didn't even exist yet, and what in pain my legs got after discovering that... Fortunately, thanks to Tyki's pedigree, we could take a carriage as we pleased, a very useful transport, especially with the much smaller number of vehicles at that time.

So, as I said, everything was going very well. Well... until the visit to the exhibition on the colonies. It was in a park, in the open air, and even if it was a bit cold, it was not unpleasant. We queued up like everyone else and it took us a while to get into the grounds. And the further we went, the more I had a bad feeling twisting in my stomach. With furrowed brows, I listened anxiously to the excited conversations of our fellow visitors, but everything blended together in indistinct confusion and I could not make out anything. Finally entering the park, I ended up understanding my bad feeling when I reached the first 'attraction'.

It was a cage.

A cage full of black children with dirty hair and unhappy faces.

Taking a step back, my eyes widening and my mouth migrating in an incredulous grimace, I stood, speechless, my feet frozen in front of the bars, surrounded by the terrified but also amused cries of the other visitors.

"Eve? Is everything okay?" Tyki suddenly asked, a hand on my shoulder effectively snapping me out of my daze. Twitching, I turned violently towards him, meeting his curious gaze with my own shocked eyes. "Are you afraid of them? Do they disgust you?" He asked as he let go of my shoulder, his gaze shining with curiosity.

"No!" I almost shouted, causing the people closest to us to turn around briefly. "No..." I said more quietly, fixing my gaze on the cage again. "Why are they in there..." I muttered under my breath. It wasn't really a question, of course I knew why they were there. They were an 'attraction', fairground beasts meant to entertain other beasts. But Tiki answered my question anyway.

"Humans are cruel," he said calmly but with such conviction that I had to restrain myself from nodding. Slipping his arm around mine, he pulled me away from the crowd, away from the cage to a fairly isolated bench. "If something is different from them, if they are afraid of it, they reject it and humiliate it." Tyki continued, his lips taking on an ironic crease. "I thought you knew that. It's in their nature."

I gritted my teeth, lifting my head to meet his gaze. "No, not everyone is like that." I said, thinking back to all the wonderful people in my twenty-first century. And even the new people I had met here. Clarisse, John, Louise, Berthe... "I don't want to be like that." I continued, my voice trembling with all the conflicting emotions that were swirling around in my head.

Stopping, Tyki looked back into my eyes, searching them as if for something. Finally, his lips puckered into a smile that was a little too wide, and for the first time since we'd met, I was truly afraid.

It was finally appearing: His Noah's half.

"Perhaps, then, you should abandon your humanity," he said, his tone frightfully gentle. Hurriedly taking a step back, I was nevertheless restrained in my efforts by his hand, suddenly wrapped around my wrist in an iron grip.

"Et me go Tyki." I asked, my voice wavering towards the high notes.

"Are you afraid of me, Eve?" he asked quietly, as if we were at the manor playing cards.

Biting my cheek until I could smell blood, I stared into his eyes. They were undeniably golden. But it was Tyki. He was still the same, in fact, he was more himself. Swallowing my fear with difficulty, I whispered a small "Yes". Not taking my eyes off of him, I continued softly, my voice shaking before I grew more confident. "But... I trust you."

He gave a small, more human smile as he finally let go of me. "You're really strange, Eve." He said before taking my arm and walking quietly towards the exit. Letting myself be guided, I glanced unreadably over my shoulder, meeting the eyes of one of the locked children. He couldn't have been more than six years old. How could these people walk past this child without reacting with anything other than laughter? Just because of the colour of his skin? I was disgusted, completely disgusted.

Even more so, when I realised that without my 21st century upbringing, I would surely have reacted like them.

Turning my gaze back to the front, I tightened my arm around Tyki's without even realising it. Even in the twenty-first century, these problems still persisted. Worse still, even if conditions had improved for blacks in my time, it was not optimal and the problem had only evolved, penalising Arabs because of the latest attacks or migrants because of the crisis. Perhaps... was Tyki right? Was it in the nature of humans to be cruel? I didn't want to believe it. In my previous life, I was too safe in my loving family and my small village without danger but... what if he was really right?

It was in a silence filled with dark thoughts and doubts that I continued my visit of Paris, my hands clinging to that of a devil who seemed to me much more human than all those around us.

I remember being absolutely disgusted when we learned about how the colonies were run in high school's history class. I was looking for what Eve and Tyki could do in 19th century Paris and it just came to me. I didn't mean to offend anyone but the subject is a pain in the ass and I'm as sheltered as Eve so I don't doubt that it happened. My apologies :/

I'm wishing you a great 2019 (or whatever year you're reading this in), Think about letting a review on your way out and see you on the 25th of next month!