History: A Touch of Colour in the Gray

Book 1: Shading the black.

Date: 25 February 2019, corrected January 2022

Beta: Still 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. 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, the twins, Allen and Tyki arrive... and of course, the Earl. To flee him, she somehow ends up in France with Tyki and Eve have a mental breakdown at the colonial exhibition.

Chapter Trigger: Depression (again and again) and, wow, the death of a secondary character!

Guys, I wrote almost 7000 words for this chapter.

That's almost 2000 more than usual... Hell, that's double the first chapter!

What happened?!

Well, anyway, just a little warning: we're continuing on the depressing path of the last chapter and even if it seems to get a little better in the middle, it only gets worse at the end. Also, we witness the death (whether it's because I completely missed his characterization and also because I actually kill him off in the story) of a side character, you've been warned.

But I guess... Enjoy your reading?

Chapter 17: Victor Hugo

Thursday, May 14, 1885

Two days after the exhibition, the atmosphere was still very heavy.

No matter how hard I tried to resume my cheerful demeanour and easy teasing with Tyki, it all sounded fake and I ended up falling back into a dark too had tried to reconnect, but I wasn't too receptive, completely lost in my thoughts.

I had come to accept, with a bad taste in my throat, that, yes, if I had actually been born in 1867 into an average family in Europe, I would have acted exactly the same way as all those people at the exhibition.

Of course, this acceptance had brought me a host of other existential questions.

If with a different upbringing I would have acted differently and it would have seemed normal to me, how could I know if the principles I was holding on to at the moment and which depended on my upbringing were right? I knew, of course, that the world was not black and white, that there were no 'good guys' and 'bad guys', but still... How could I judge others on their principles, if I couldn't even logically explain my own? It just seemed... arbitrary, unfair, even. So, turning and turning furiously in my mind, I tried to untangle the subject, wishing fervently to find a solid edge as I mentally lost my footing.

Meanwhile, I followed Tyki and Eliott on their tour of Paris as if through an opaque haze, the joy of the first day long gone. I wasn't even sure what we'd done in those two days, they could have left me at the hotel and it would have been the same in terms of memories.

And then... the evening of the fourth day arrived.

That day we had returned to the hotel fairly early, Eliott leaving us outside ours with a frown, as if to warn us to expect him the next day. So, walking back up to my room, gaze still hazy, Tyki had gently grabbed my hand and pulled me into a slightly out-of-the-way corner where we could enjoy some relative privacy.

"What's going on?" He asked then, his voice no louder than a whisper.

Raising my head, I looked into his eyes for the first time in two days. Seeming to find what I thought was genuine concern there, my gaze fell to the floor again, my shoulders hunched and a sigh swelling my chest.

"It's nothing, it's not you, I'm... just, I'm questioning all my beliefs and... well, it's not easy, I just need some time." I replied, but I honestly didn't know if I was saying this to reassure him, or myself.

"Your beliefs?" Tyki repeated as he let go of my wrist, a thin smile playing on his lips. "So what, you believe in God now? Tricia's going to be delighted!" He declared quietly so as not to attract the attention of the other hotel guests, but still loud enough to let the teasing show.

Assessing his words as a new perch, I forced a smile to my lips, figuratively grabbing it with my hands. "What is this I hear, Lord Mikk? Do you doubt my devotion to the Almighty?" And then, a little more faintly, my voice heavy with the laughter that threatened to escape my throat, my spirits much better than a few minutes before. "Shut up, we'll be called heretics and burned at the stake!"

"No, of course not, I wouldn't dare!" Tyki replied, with a hand over his heart and a falsely outraged face. Quickly placing one of my hands over my lips to stop myself from laughing too hard, it still took me a few minutes to calm down, the fact that Tyki kept making weird expressions with his eyebrows didn't help the matter...

Wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes, with a smile still on my face, I looked up at Tyki. "Thank you." I said simply, trying to put all my gratitude into it.

"With pleasure." He replied, forcing another smile on my lips. At this point, I was pretty sure he was only using that expression because he knew it made me laugh. No, really, in the two months since we'd met it had increased tenfold, and yet I could never stop smiling at it. "Actually..." he then resumed quickly before pausing slightly, as if he was thinking of a plan of action. "Would you like to come to the bar with me tonight?" he finally asked with a thoughtful but understanding look.

In another life (read: before arriving in 1884) I would probably have smiled and then made a lame excuse and gone to my room to read.

Now, however, I really had absolutely nothing else to do and... well, I wanted company, even if it had to be non-human.

However... "Tricia didn't really let me bring anything suitable." I pointed out, biting my lower lip. "And I don't think it's a very good idea for me to go like this." I said, tugging a little on the skirt of my too nice dress. After all, the kind of places Tyki hung out in were particularly bad, and even if I had a great bodyguard, he still had to be really dedicated to his job. And, as sad as it was, I wasn't sure Tyki cared enough about me, a human he'd known for less than three months, to actively protect me in case of trouble.

"I can lend you some clothes, 'God' knows I've earned enough the last couple of nights. I'm sure something should fit you in the bunch. And, I promise, they're clean, I had the hotel people clean them, I was going to drop them off at an orphanage before I went back to London."

"Good idea, yeah, no doubt if Sheryl saw you coming back with it, he'd have a heart attack." I laugh softly as I follow him down the hall to his room.

He was right, in just a few days he had accumulated a veritable pile of workmen's clothes. Of course, there was nothing in my size, but that was just as well. One pair of shapeless trousers, a loose shirt, a coat with holes in it and a cap later, I looked like any other street rat. For his part, Tyki dressed in a similar way and we went downstairs, sneaking through the kitchens. No need to be noticed after all.

Paris at night in 1885 had a strange atmosphere.

On the one hand, a gentle wind blew and stirred the branches into pleasant whispers, on the other, the oil lamps cast a dim, flickering glow that seemed to animate every shadow into a terrifying monster. I confess that only a few minutes later I had hooked my fingers on Tyki's arm, not very reassured by the dark alleys that twisted around us.

Fortunately, within a few more minutes we had arrived in the slightly less privileged areas and it didn't take much longer to find a promising looking bar.

"Do you want something to drink?" I asked Tyki as we walked in.

"Yes, let's go and sit at the counter." He replied as we tried to make our way through the crowded tables of revellers.

"Aren't you going to play?" I asked, curious.

"Not right now, or at least not with them." He said as he pulled a stool over to sit on before raising his hand to catch the bartender's eye. "But we can play cards? No betting of course."

A little sceptical but willing to try, I smiled and let him order our drinks while I handed out the cards. Soon our drinks arrived and I was a little less keen when I saw my pint of beer. I wasn't a big fan of alcohol and this one seemed to taste even stranger than the ones I'd had in my day but hey, I was thirsty, it was hot and we continued the game while drinking.

After a little while, surely seeing my empty glass and my gloom struggling to leave, Tyki interrupted our card game to order again. "Here, swallow this." He said, pushing a small glass into my hands. Giving him a suspicious look, he rolled his eyes but raised his own glass in my direction with a small nod before swallowing it down.

Seeing no reaction, I shrugged and did the same... before bursting into a furious coughing fit.

"C'est quoi cette merde ?!" I swore in French, my cheeks red and my voice a little too low from coughing.

"It's absinthe," said Tyki, unknowingly answering the question I had just asked. "I like it, it warms you up inside." He said as he raised his hand in the direction of the bartender to take another drink.

"Warms up? It burns, yeah!" I mumbled in choppy English, my head spinning and my gut tangled. "Urgh, I feel like throwing up." I groaned, laying my head on the table as the Noah bastard laughed softly at my misery as he sipped his second drink.

Surprisingly, I soon joined him in his merriment, the alcohol surely helping on that front. In fact, I was so lost that it was a good hour later, when I started my second pint under Tyki's encouragement that I started to feel really weird. But that wasn't possible, I'd never managed to get drunk, I always felt sick to my stomach before it happened...

Anyway, becoming a little more cheerful than I should be, I asked Tyki to go back to the hotel, claiming to be tired. Agreeing, he finished his pint and mine and walked me out of the bar filling the heavy silence of the dark alleys with some amusing stories.

"...and I think that's why Sheryl shouldn't let Road play with candles." He finished his anecdote as I laughed a little too loudly not to come from a completely drunk person. "What about you? Tricia tells me you have siblings? Actually, I don't even know where you're really from." He continued quietly, giving me an innocent look.

Wait... Did Tyki get me drunk to ask me about my private life?

...

Naaaaaaaaan

I'm sure that's a very random question.

Anyway, no matter how much I knew somewhere buried in the mists of my brain that I really shouldn't talk about it, my mouth didn't seem to get the message and blithely spouted a stream of answers. It was just a bunch of random information jumping from my family to my friends to my favourite foods to my impossible desires. I just prayed there was nothing about possible space-time travel or the extremely long and detailed dream that had brought me here.

"Tykiiiii" I finally groaned just after finishing a rambling speech about baobabs and moon travel. "I need a huuuug" I said, tripping over him as I reached for his arm. It was strange how I seemed to be mentally aware of everything but... unable to physically do anything about it.

"Ouch! You're heavy" he laughed as he grabbed me, preventing me from sticking my head in the cobbles.

"I'm Ivy? V...Vii... Ivy! I'm Iiiivy!" I stammered, my tongue pasty before suddenly shouting my new name, glad to have found it. Or something close to it anyway.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry Eve." Tyki nodded with the worst possible complacent tone.

"Noooo, it's Ivy! Iiiiivy!" I insisted as I pulled away from him, pointing a finger into his chest with each 'Ivy'. Or at least that's what I was trying to do, but without support I was starting to wobble again.

"Yes, of course, Ivy," Tyki put a hand behind my back for support. "Well, I never thought I'd see you like this." He said with an amused smile. "I'm glad I took you to the bar, you seem much happier than you were this morning. And it's a lot more fun than the gloom you've had the last few days."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit!" I laughed before suddenly stopping, forcing Tyki to do the same. "Hug?" I asked again with furrowed brows, forcing my gaze to meet Tyki's this time.

"I'm sorry, E-... uh... Ivy, I have no idea what you're saying." Tyki apologised and I finally realised that I had simply spent the last half hour chatting in French. Now having no filter between my thoughts and my actions, I quickly began to convulse with laughter, clinging to Tyki's shoulder, his hand still wrapped around my waist to keep me from crashing to the ground. At least, even if I had said something inadvertently, Tyki hadn't understood anything anyway...

"I'm tired..." I finally mumbled, my fit stopped.

"I know, I know, we're almost there," Tyki gently assured me as he pulled my suddenly sleepy body up. "And to think that a few minutes earlier I had to stop you from running around." Tyki sighed.

Muttering something stupid, I leaned on him a little more and...

...And that's about the time my memories stop.

Friday, May 15, 1885

Pulling the blanket a little tighter, I tried to keep the slightest bit of light from attacking my eyes while digging through my memories for something else to get out. It wasn't nice to know that something was being forgotten. Of course, I'd been dealing with it for the past few months, still not remembering how or when I'd arrived in 1884, but it was much more significant when the memory lapse in question definitely contained the Noah of pleasure. Even if I concentrated carefully, everything else was just flashes of colour or sensation without any recognisable link between them.

At least, I thought with relief, the only things I was missing from yesterday's outfit were my cap and boots and I didn't hurt anywhere except my head, but that was easily explained by the alcohol. So it couldn't be too bad, could it?

Clinging to that thought, my fists tightened around my sheets all the same, my breath a little fast and my eyelids firmly closed. Taking a deep breath, I forced my fingers to let go and then gently pushed the thick blanket over my head. Despite my closed eyes, the morning light was too strong and I groaned in pain at the stinging under my eyelids. Suffering as I waited for habituation, I slowly sat up in bed to try and limit my headache. Finally opening my eyes, I was pleased to discover that not only was I in my own hotel room, but Tyki was nowhere in sight, unlike the first day.

Dragging myself with difficulty to the edge of the large bed, I poured myself a glass of water, vaguely remembering having read somewhere that you should drink water if you were hungover. Not having the energy to think of a scientifically plausible explanation, I took my memories as fact and drank two more glasses. Not being able to swallow anything more at the moment, I stumbled to the bathroom to wash up, even though all I wanted to do was get back into bed and sleep through the whole ordeal.

A good half hour later, this time clean, but still with my head up my ass, I was thinking of doing just that when there was a knock on the door. It was Tyki, of course, I realised as I tried to relax my suddenly stiff muscles, and he was bringing breakfast with him. "You look awful." He said as he set the tray on the table and sat down in the chair opposite the one I was already slumped in.

"Don't talk too loud..." I muttered, my head in my hands and my elbows on the table. For once, I thought he was okay: I'm sure wasn't making a very pretty sight.

"First hangover?" He asked a little less loudly with a tone that, had I been in a better mood, I could have assessed as sympathetic. Now, however, with a headache the size of big ben, I found it hard to be objective, especially since my condition was at least 50 percent his fault. But, yes, first hangover. Then again, I'd never managed to get drunk. Not even tipsy. Of course, I'd never tried hard, not being curious enough to handle the state, but I'd only had, what? One and a half beer and an absinthe shot ? Unless it was really much stronger than I thought, I shouldn't be in that state... But I really didn't have the courage to put this mess into an intelligible sentence, so I let out a pitiful moan as my only answer.

"Come on, 'Ivy'." He scoffed as he stood up and I gave him a confused look before remembering shamefully that I had insisted that was my name last night. "Sheryl gave me some chores to do this morning, you might as well take the opportunity to sleep in. You need to be in shape for our last afternoon."

"Something special?" I asked curiously, assessing his secretive tone of voice.

"Maybe..." he said with a sly smile before walking out of the room.

Intrigued now, but terribly tired, I shrugged and shuffled to my bed before sinking into it with a happy sigh. I had slept quite late and vomited the contents of my stomach when I got up, but I still felt awful and a good nap didn't seem too bad.

No more alcohol. Never again.

It was far too soon, in my humble opinion, that the doorbell rang again. It was almost four o'clock in the afternoon and I had been awake for an hour. Fortunately I was feeling better, but that didn't mean I was breathing life. My headache was now much more bearable, but my stomach was still weird and I felt so lethargic that I hadn't even bothered to reach for the book on the bedside table.

But of course, life didn't wait, and with a heavy sigh, I got up to answer the door.

It was Eliott, and I had to hardly prevent a grimace from twisting my lips. Fortunately, he didn't linger. He'd just come to tell me that Tyki had returned to the hotel and that I should join him in the small living room in a few minutes after he changed.

"So..." I began as I saw him enter the living room some time later. He wasn't indeed wearing the same clothes as this morning, and I vaguely wondered why he had bothered to change them. "Where are we going?" I asked as I joined him.

"Well, Tricia would probably want it to remain a surprise until the end..." He said quietly as we walked out of the hotel to call a cab. "But I know that was more of an excuse than a real purpose." Seeing my expectant look, he laughed softly before finally telling me what we were going to do. "Tricia has arranged a meeting with Victor Hugo."

Uh... what?

With round eyes, I stared at Tyki with incomprehension. Because yes, this was the nineteenth century and I had discovered that Victor Hugo existed in that dimension too. And then, yes, I had used his exhibition as an excuse to avoid seeing the Earl. But... even then, Victor Hugo was already something of a national idol, wasn't he? Did Sheryl really have that much power that he could (under Tricia's command) arrange a meeting for a 'friend' with a high political and cultural figure from another country?

Swallowing hard, I realised that my plan to run away-like-hell-if-there-was-a-problem might not be as effective as I had expected... Even counting the akumas, I had painfully underestimated their passive strength.

So, still stuck in a reflexive state, it took me a few seconds to get out of it when the carriage stopped in front of a typical Haussmannian bar of houses. Knocking on the door, a stern-looking old woman soon came to open it and let us in after telling her that we were from the Marquis Kamelott.

She made us wait in a small lounge and a few minutes later an old man entered the room. He stood up straight in good quality black clothes. However, the weight of the years was clearly visible, especially on his face where countless wrinkles gathered around a tired look, the rest of his face being eaten by a neatly trimmed white beard.

"You must be Lord Mikk and Lady Campbell, I presume?" He asked in slightly accented English as we stood up to greet him. Nodding, I let Tyki do the customary greetings and all the political stuff as I sat back down nervously on the sofa. Hey, it was Victor Hugo after all! One of the greatest French writers whom I personally respected for his work on the death penalty, orphans and women. Of course, I didn't agree with everything, but on the whole, the guy was a visionary ahead of his time and had my utmost respect. Hell, some of the French teachers I'd had were real fan boys/girls and I couldn't help but smile smugly as I imagined their faces if they knew I'd met him in person.

"Marquis Kamelott was not very clear about the reason for your visit." The writer said later, once everyone had settled down to a cup of tea and he and Tyki had exchanged banalities.

"Eve is a great admirer of your work and my sister-in-law, the Marquise Kamelott thought meeting you would be a great birthday present." Tyki simply replied as I gave him a surprised look. A birthday present from Tricia? Wow, I didn't expect that at all... It's true that the financial question hadn't even been discussed, but I just thought that the cost would be deducted from my future salary. Even if it took several months. We hadn't travelled cheaply, after all, wasn't it a bit of a disproportionate gift for an employee? I knew Tricia saw me as a friend and I felt the same way, but for all her manipulative skills, Tricia couldn't have gotten all that out of Sheryl... could she?

"Anyway, I wouldn't want to force you to speak in English during this whole meeting." Tyki said finely as I glared at him, sensing where he was going with those words. "I'll leave you two to talk, in the meantime, would you mind if I looked at your library?" He asked as he stood up when the writer agreed.

Tyki now across the room, Hugo turned to me and I reached for my cup of tea, uncomfortably, to occupy my hands. "So you speak French?" he asked, his piercing eyes seeming to look through me like an open book.

"Yes, I am French by birth," I replied in my native tongue.

"Where are you from? I can't place your accent," the old man asked me.

"From the Paris suburbs." I answered lightly, trying to keep the details to a minimum. He seemed to be a little sceptical but didn't push it and I was very grateful. It wasn't so much him that I wanted to keep this information from, but Tyki. He may have said he didn't understand French, but I didn't want to take any chances.

After that there was a slightly awkward silence. I had finally realised that, yes, I was having tea in the nineteenth century with the writer Victor Hugo, and although on the outside I was trying not to show anything, on the inside I was screaming in a panic.

What was I supposed to say to him?!

Fortunately, the old man was quick to engage me in conversation by asking me what I thought of his novels and, without my realising it, within a few minutes I was talking as vividly as I had in our debates with Tyki. Perhaps even more so, for I could really use all my vocabulary if not all my knowledge.

I had no idea how much time passed, but I know that Tyki left somewhere in the middle and I took advantage of that to be even freer in my words. Whatever Victor Hugo thought of me, I didn't care. On the one hand, because I would probably never see him again and he wouldn't have the opportunity to talk about our meeting to my relatives, and on the other hand, because he had to meet hundreds of fans every month, what were the chances he would remember me in particular?

Whatever the reason, I was talking like I hadn't in months, arguing, sighing, laughing, gesticulating and even shouting. Until I did this, I didn't realise how much I was unconsciously limiting myself from being too 'weird' for the people in the manor. With a weight lifted from my shoulders, I poured my heart into this conversation.

So much so, that we came to talk about much deeper issues.

Topics that touched us both intimately. It was dreams, desires, regrets... all kinds of feelings mixed together and... I told him about my family. About those people who meant everything to me and whom I will probably never see again.

And in return he told me about Leopoldine.

It is strange how little and how much I knew about this man at the same time. Since the beginning of my schooling, I had studied his texts. First with poems to learn by heart in primary school, then short stories to read in secondary school and his novels to study in high school. And with his works, we learned about his life, analysed the major events that had shaped who he had become. But in spite of all these facts and dates that were running through my head, when I saw his eyes, I had the impression that I didn't know anything anymore.

So yes, I knew the story of Leopoldine, I knew the impact that his daughter's death had on him, the beautiful poems that this drama had created.

But I didn't know Leopoldine's life, I didn't know what her death had done to her father, I didn't understand the poems that had resulted.

And then...

"Hypothetically, if something had come to you offering to bring one of your loved ones back to life... would you have said yes?"

Such an innocent question asked by a philosopher who had already theorised about death many times. But for me, who had a knowledge that few had in this world, this question was like a scream. I had looked up, looking into his eyes, trying to find something, something that would assure me that this man had not taken the offer, that I was not talking to a tormented machine.

"Hypothetically..." I began slowly, biting my lip as I gathered my thoughts, my mind panicking and my instinct telling me to run, run, run. "I wouldn't have taken the offer." I replied, my body tense and my eyes fixed. I was ready to jump off the couch at any moment even though I knew there was little chance of me escaping. But, what if I was just fooling myself? He was a great man, an intelligent man, he wouldn't have taken the Earl's offer?

...right?

But deep down, I knew what love could do to a human. There was no more logic and right thinking when emotion intervened.

"Why?" He asked simply and it took me a few moments to understand what he was asking. The problem... was that the question required an answer that I couldn't tell him. Because, if I didn't know what was going to happen, if I had been desperate enough and alone as I was that time in the library, would I really have refused the Earl's offer?

I could have replied something like "that would have been too good to be true" or "the dead should stay dead" but seeing the look in the poet's eyes, I couldn't bring myself to feed him pre-made good thoughts.

And damn it if I was talking to an akuma.

"Because I know the consequences." I answered softly and saw his eyes open a little more as if in realisation.

"Have you met him?" He whispered and it was so weak I wasn't sure he meant it out loud.

Well, technically..."Yes. Have you seen him too?"

He looked at me a little more, fell silent, and then, turning his gaze to the window, let out a tired sigh. "I said no."

These simple words instantly relaxed me. Logically, I knew it could be a lie, but instinctively I thought it was not. But before I could even let out a fragile smile, he turned to me and his eyes held such sadness that they prevented me from breathing

"...and that is my greatest regret." He said, his voice lifeless. "My Adèle took the offer the next night."

Holding back a gasp, I clenched my fists in my skirts with wide eyes. Adèle, Victor Hugo's second daughter, terribly traumatised by the death of her older sister but who, despite her mental problems, had been the only one of the five children to survive her father.

"I... what... how...?" I stammered not even knowing what I really wanted to ask.

"I didn't even notice. I was too caught up in my own pain to see that my second daughter had also been taken from me. An exorcist shot it down three months later, but that thing had already had time to kill my wife and my newborn son."

I let out a shaky sigh, my eyes burning. Gritting my teeth, I swallowed a sob and forced myself not to cry. I had no right to, it wasn't my story and I didn't want him to comfort me when it should be my job to do so. Unfortunately... I had never been good at comforting, usually leaving it to one of my friends while I simply gave the person some space. This time, however, that tactic couldn't work and I was desperate for something to say in response. "That was when you started writing Les Misérables, wasn't it?" I muttered suddenly, not knowing myself why I had said that.

Fortunately, to my great relief, even if total incomprehension, this seemed to bring him out of his funk somewhat and he gave me a sweetly bitter smile. "I thought it was a good match for my poor state of mind. The book wasn't like that at the time, or not quite. It was the story of Jean Valjean and Cosette, but the Earl was at the centre of the story. I wanted to warn the people, even if it had to be done by a tale that no one would think was true."

"What happened?" I asked. For I had reread Les Misérables when I arrived here, and although the book seemed somewhat different from the one in my world, it was far from being a novel about the Earl.

"The church censored it." He replied simply. "I don't know how they found out, I had only had close friends read the manuscript, but they came to my door and made it clear that I was not to publish it under any circumstances." He said as he leaned forward slightly, his eyes losing their heavy fatigue for the first time in our conversation and taking on an angry glow. "If you were to take one thing from this conversation, Miss Campbell, it would be to be very careful with whom you discuss this subject. When an entity as powerful as the Church seeks to bind your lips, it does not bode well." He said before leaning a little closer to me, this time whispering, "I've been stirring this muck for forty years and only trouble has come of it. There's nothing white about this story, it's just a vile slurry. I advise you not to get more involved than you already are."

Swallowing hard, I thought of Sheryl working in his office, Tyki playing cards with Allen, the twins bothering Road, Tricia talking to Duke Campbell and... "I won't make promises I can't keep," I replied, and if my voice was a little higher than normal, it must have been an auditory effect.

"Eve?" Tyki suddenly asked, knocking on the office door. Jumping up, the mystical mood completely broken, I exchanged a knowing glance with the old writer. "Are you almost finished?" He said, opening the door when I asked him what he wanted.

"Ah, yes, I think so." I said as I looked at the man and when he nodded at me, I stood up to greet him. "Thank you very much for this discussion, it was very... informative." I say still a little tense, my head spinning with the implications of what he had taught me.

"You're welcome, I enjoyed it very much too." He said in a neutral voice as he also stood up before turning to his bookcase and grabbing a large book. He then walked over to his desk and, dipping his quill in ink, signed the book before handing it to me. "To remind you of what we escaped in the dark days."

Grabbing the book with a gentle thank you, I looked down to read the title and grinned wryly as I saw the beautiful curly letters of Les Misérables spread across the cover. "I'll remember it." I replied, dipping my eyes into his before hesitating for a few moments, "Thank you for everything and... please be careful, a sickness happens so quickly." He nodded with a curious look and walked me to the front door.

Five days later, sitting comfortably in the manor's parlour with Tricia, I dropped my cup of tea when she announced with a sad look on her face that the great writer Victor Hugo had died of illness last night and how lucky I had been to meet him before!

It was three days earlier than in my old world.

With trembling hands, I had skimmed through the paper, letting out a relieved sigh when I read that he had suffered very little, even leaving with a smile on his deathbed. He had not fought his illness, according to the doctors, he had just declared his time had come, settled his affairs and laid down on his bed never to wake up again. A much more peaceful death than the one I had experienced and I couldn't help but wonder if it was my fault.

I spent the next few days in a daze, unable to stop thinking about what had happened. One morning, six days after the news of Victor Hugo's death, I received a package from France sent a week earlier containing several notebooks of research on the Holy War. A manuscript telling the story of a man raising the dead was also included. A note was attached to it, begging me in beautiful cursive calligraphy not to put myself in danger.

Biting my lip, I wondered for a second if I would be able to follow the poet's last wish.

Fate really didn't need to send me a whiny Road at that very moment for me to know that it was a pious dream.

Elo keeps saying I'm setting up a ship between Tyki and Eve, she calls it the TykEve X') But I don't want to.

Anyway... Phew ... well that was quite a piece ... Almost 7000 words of thoughts on the human condition and death with a Victor Hugo characterisation, I beg to stop and return to my silly slice of life. I really thought I wasn't going to make it through and I was practically pulling my hair out on this conversation. Now that my head is at rest, I'm much happier about it. Given my motivation and my writer's block, it could have been much worse. At least I was able to get through all my clues for the rest of the story and Victor Hugo doesn't look too weird... well, I think?

Think about letting a review on your way out and see you on the 25th of next month!