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 Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 5:41 pm
He’d told Elke what he’d done, more or less. Even for people such as themselves, experienced with Order magic and its associated weirdness as they were, Finn wasn’t sure that “I’ve got Menachem’s starseed inside my chest and he’s inside my head” fully expressed what he was trying to get across. His ancestor wasn’t just inside his head - he could take control, which had been terrifying at first and he still wasn’t completely comfortable with it, but he’d promised Elke a chance to say goodbye and he didn’t know how long he was going to be like this.
So, the sooner the better.
His knocks on her door sounded hollow. “Hi,” said Finn, when Elke answered, and he felt an incoherent rush of emotions from the part of his head where Menachem’s running commentary usually came from. His ancestor’s feelings were clearly… complicated. Which was to say, he’d carried a torch for Virgo for a thousand years and Finn didn’t want to get any further into it than that, because doing so scared him just a little bit.
“So I brought I guest for you,” he said, tapping his temple gently, as his head had only finally stopped spinning. “But if you want to talk to him, I’m going to have to go away for a while so he can take over. So if there’s anything you want me to download you on first, better ask now.”
Finn took a deep breath. This was like… a make-a-wish trip. For a thousand-year-old dead guy.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:02 pm
Elke wasn’t sure she entirely understood what was going on. Finn… had done something with Menachem’s starseed. And now Menachem was there? Somehow? Whatever it meant, you know, she… she was glad. She missed him, and--it doesn’t do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, went the pop culture saying, but dreams were all she had to live in, anymore.
No matter what it meant, she was going to find out. Elke had spent the time since Finn’s texts agitated, torn between anxiety and excitement. Menachem was there. She could… she could talk to him. Touch him? The thought brought a heavy blush to her cheeks. Elke only committed to the clothes she was wearing when she heard a knock on her door, and then she scrambled to close the doors of the armoire.
Outside the door, it was just Finn, but she remembered half the conversation--now he’s inside my head. She took a deep breath and smiled and let Finn in. Standing there, knowing Menachem was looking at her space, she wanted to destroy every last bit of it that looked childish; the gossamer curtains were suddenly offensive to her, the lone stuffed animal sitting in a bookshelf a reminder that she had always been too young for him. “I… is he really here? Can I… I mean… if it’s not too much trouble. I’d like to talk to him.” She liked Finn, liked him a lot, but Menachem--Menachem… She hadn’t seen him in so long. “Please?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:05 pm
FInn had never been into Elke’s room before, but knowing what he did about her, her personality, and her upbringing, the decor made sense to him. Sophisticated, but with just a few lingering traces of childishness. At least in his mind, that fit Elke to a T. And he would have loved to stay and talk, to tell her some more about what he’d done and how the spell worked, but he could see where her priorities were.
“Yeah, sure,” said Finn, trying not to take it too personally. It wasn’t that Elke didn’t want to see him, he thought. It was just that Menachem was just so much more of a priority, and wouldn’t his ancestor be just as able to explain the magic they were caught up in just as well as he could?
He’d only handed control over to his ancestor once before, and wasn’t confident in being able to make the handoff smoothly, but he was going to try. Closing his eyes, Finn visualized pulling his consciousness in tight and making space. She’s all yours, he thought, and felt blue light rushing to fill the parts of his mind he’d just left blank.
Menachem opened his eyes, and they glowed faintly blue. “Aria,” he said reverently, leaning to press a kiss to the back of her hand. “Or would you rather I call you Elke?” he asked, straightening. This was all very strange to him, and she looked different and she looked young, but no younger than when he’d first fallen for her. He’d grown old in the meantime- but this borrowed body hummed with youthful energy.
“This boy is doing me a great service,” he intoned. “It is good to see you. You are… a sight for sore eyes, and lovely as ever.”
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:32 pm
“Thank you,” she said, demure, but already trying to think of ways she could thank Finn later. He was more to her than just a mechanism to allow her to see the man she had fallen in love with over a thousand years ago and a million miles away. And… Menachem would be gone. If not soon, much sooner than Finn. She watched him, carefully, and she thought--she could see the moment that Finn gave way to Menachem. It was in the way he carried himself. Finn was always ever-so-slightly self-effacing, but Menachem… he wasn’t.
He opened his eyes, and they glowed, and he said her name. Elke had always thought of Aria as her real name, the one that she had been born with so long ago, ever since she’d learned it. It thrilled her to hear it. “Aria is fine,” she said, and her throat felt too tight for anything else, not with her hand in his, not with him there, finally, for the first time in so very, very long. She blinked back tears, because she was an adult, and she was not going to cry. Maybe she would see him again after this, but she wasn’t sure these kinds of spells were meant to last. “Finn said he wanted to take you back to the Cauldron,” she said, stepping closer to him, taking his hand in both of hers and running her thumbs over the back of his palms. “I wanted to tell you--I’m glad? I’ll miss you, but I… you’ve done this, so… now it’s my turn.”
And the Zodiac never lived very long, anyway. Elke regarded her eighteen years on the planet with something of a mystified wonder, a disbelief that she lived and continued to live. She’d already died, twice… but she wasn’t going to say it was unfair that Menachem only got the once. He was here. That would have to be enough. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:32 pm
He stepped forward with a surety to his movements that Finn could never inhabit. Elke did not look like Aria in any measurable way, Menachem thought. Her past incarnation had had darker, redder hair. Her skin had been freckled. Her eyes were similar, maybe: the same grass green. But he recognized her, regardless of whether her new face and form were a match for her old one, and he felt warmth spread from the pit of his stomach.
He cupped her chin in his hands, leaned down, and kissed her carefully on the mouth. “Mm,” he said thoughtfully, after a moment. “It is strange to have a corporeal form again.” This body was strange - shorter than his had been, and he remembered that much even after all these years. Menachem had been pleased to find Finn was in acceptable physical condition, and had told him so, but the height difference was still definitely jarring.
“Your wait won’t be a thousand-year vigil,” he assured her, rubbing a careful circle on her cheek with his right thumb. Aria was young yet, Menachem reminded himself, but he worried, briefly, of her trying to speed the process. “Nothing would make me happier than for you to live a long and happy life,” he said. “I will wait for you. You have my word.”
The Finn part of his mind had gone quiet. Dormant. “He will be gone for a long while,” he said, brushing hair back from her face. “If you wanted to speak longer.” Truth be told, he had missed her far beyond speaking. But this was a borrowed body, and a thousand years was a long time. He did not want to presume.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:32 pm
He kissed her and it was nothing like kissing Grayson. Leo. Gentler still, if that was possible. She laid her hands on his chest, stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again. It was easy enough to discount that this body was different from the one she had known Menachem to have. She had already considered and discarded the same issue with Grayson, two years ago. “I know,” she said, closing her eyes, leaning into his hand. It would be much, much shorter. And she knew that he would want her to live for a long time, experience everything he had and everything she’d been robbed of in that first life, during the Silver Millennium. She imagined getting to watch Phoebus grow up. Getting married.
Even in her mind, she could not really picture anything but the Zodiac.
She reached up, ran her thumbs along his cheekbones, and pulled him down to her for a kiss. “I love you,” she said. “When we’re reborn, we’ll find each other, won’t we?” Like she had found his descendant. In her heart, she knew just how unlikely it was--that somehow he’d bridge the whole world to find her--but if anyone could do it, it was Menachem. He was here now, wasn’t he?
Elke took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She was grown now. People died. At least she would see Menachem again, even if she would never tell him the things that had changed in her world since he’d gone. How Aly would never be coming back, how Jude was just as gone. She reached for him again and kissed him, and said, “I want you. Stay with me a little while, won’t you?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:33 pm
She took to this rather quickly, thought Menachem, for all he knew about her friendship with Finn. On further reflection, he realized he’d been foolish to expect more hesitation. Aria had a history of making the first moves in their relationship, and he was grateful to be treated as himself, for all that this magic was strange to him. “Yes,” he said, his hands tightening just slightly on her shoulders. “I would cross galaxies for you.” Although - that didn’t seem like it would be necessary. He was Babylon. She was Virgo. Their fates were tied together, no matter what age they were born into.
At her request, he took a choked sort of breath. A thousand years was a long time to spend as old and incorporeal. Menachem was, at the moment, young and virile again, for as long as Finn remained asleep, and he had no way of knowing how long it would be before he returned to the cauldron. (Honestly, he thought his successor was making this up as he went.)
Perhaps it was objectively wrong to use Finn’s body this way, he thought. But the boy had known what he was getting into in handing control over. Menachem nodded. He’d dreamed of being able to hold Aria in his arms even once more too many times to refuse. “I have some time,” he said, pressing his forehead down to touch hers. “I missed you so terribly. My vigil was long. Lonely.”
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:33 pm
He would cross galaxies for her. She hoped he wouldn’t have to. The Cauldron was rumored to be near Sagittarius Zero Star--the center of this galaxy. Surely it wouldn’t reach too terribly far away to bring Menachem back? She touched a hand to her hair, brushing it back, and kissed Menachem again. “You’re here now,” she said, running her hands through his hair. “With me.” She stepped back, taking his hands in hers. With only a little embarrassment, she pulled Menachem towards her bed.
If he would only be with her for a little time, she wanted to make use of every second of it.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:34 pm
It was hours later by the time Finn woke up, his face resting lightly against Elke’s shoulder. He didn’t need to move much to grasp that they were both naked, which came as no surprise. Menachem’s part of his mind was quiet - apparently seducing your past lover was exhausting.
“Hey,” Finn said quietly, giving Elke a little nudge. “Everything okay?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:34 pm
Elke barely roused, except to notice that the hands at her waist were uncertain now. “Mmm, yes,” she said into her pillow. She opened her eyes to look out the window, where everything outside was pleasantly masked by darkness. With a little sigh, she closed her eyes and pulled his arm over her again. “You should stay until morning, it’s dark out.”
She dozed for a moment, and then said, “Thank you, Finn.”
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