fury, genie, ghost, vampire, nymph c8 (I CANT BELIEVE YOUR ASK TITLE HAS IT BEEN THAT ALL THIS TIME EVEN WHEN I WAS SENDING IN ANON BEYONCE ASKS)
Fury: What is a word/phrase that you dread to hear?
"It's done. It's over."
He closes his eyes, finally relaxed. He forces them open, allowing himself only a moment - though he can do nothing to stem the flow if relief that winds its way through his nervous system and embeds straight into his bones. He won't let his last moments pass by, staring at the insides of his own eyelids. He turns instead to Meredith - there, just as he always is.
Elijah smiles.
It's over. It's done.
Genie: If you had one wish that would come true and couldn’t be reversed, what would you ask for?
"Simple, isn't it? The same thing everyone else would ask for: wealth, riches, success."
The same things everyone else was entitled to, the same things which were denied to him and all his like just because they'd had the gall to be born something other. (Lesser, the world beat into them again and again.)
Simple, isn't it?
An entirely different world, another fate.
But Elijah had never been content to wait around on falling stars or genies - someone else's luck.
Ghost: Do you have any regrets?
"None."
He regrets, sometimes, that life has left him with very little option to regret.
(He regrets, sometimes, that he will never live to see Petunia inherit the world she always deserved to have.)
Vampire: Someone offers you a chance at immortality. Do you take it, and why or why not?
A single word curls out among the smoke pillowing from between his lips. "No."
Living forever is a burden too great for someone so simple as him to bear.
It would make for a very lonely life and Elijah has never been good at being a lonely man.
Nymph: What are you like when you’re by yourself?
"Quite terrible at it."
What on earth has he to do without Meredith to lend a steady ear to his constant drivel? To entertain his newest notions? To observe his latest fits? To see his hidden smiles?
No one else loses quite as spectacularly at chess or makes brilliant faces for it.
When she thought about it, Petunia realized that Hive City and Melbourne were incredibly similar despite the obvious differences; the futuristic setting (or, at least it was to her). Both were crowded with strangers, and she often felt out of place. In Melbourne, she had been discriminated against more times than she could count because of her appearance, but at least she had her brothers, Hana, and Todd Allison. She had had Mr. Cyril too, but, she always felt just slightly uncomfortable around him. Now, in Hive City, it was the exact opposite. She had made acquaintances, sure, and had just acquired a job, but, she still didn’t stop feeling lonely. Petunia wondered where her brothers and friends were, if they missed her, and if they were okay. Elijah and Meredith had always been surprisingly strong, yet, that didn’t stop her worrying about them.
She was their little sister — the baby of the family — after all.
But, no matter how she verbally, or non, expressed her desire to go home, it never came.
So, it was perhaps a funny trick, or rather a cruel one, that Hive City brought ‘home’ to her instead.
Familiar voices, footsteps and presences grabbed her immediate attention. No, it couldn’t be — Could it..?
”.. Elijah..? .. Meredith..? Y — you’re… You’re here?!”
She wasn’t quite sure how to feel; relieved? happy? or, sad? Relieved that she’s not alone, but sad that her loved ones were now suffering the same fate as she. }
Meredith's attempts to dislodge the fingers Elijah has hooked into the corners of his forced smile go largely thwarted. Elijah knows by now (born of far too much practice at the expense of Meredith's long suffering) how to twist his wrists this way and that, how to shift his balance so as to upset Meredith's just enough to keep his prying hands where they lay.
It's just one of many waltzes the two have perfected, in sync to the rhythm of their mirrored heartbeats.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Something about Petunia. Oh, Meredith, playing dirty (scandalous, my dear, absolutely scandalous) --
But then there is a voice. Familiar and melodic, exquisite as a thousand angel's singing in a choir. Saccharine like the most decadent of desserts.
He whirls.
Petunia.
Petunia!
"Darling. Dearest. Honeysuckle. Licorice. Sugar snaps. Chocolate mud pie. Petunia." He does not realize he's been saying it aloud.
He falls upon her in a way that is, likely, becoming all too familiar for dearest, darlingest baby sister Petunia, though their reunion has not been as long coming as the last.
Nearly a month in the city, and Petunia was nearly broke, lived in a hut underground, and pretty much alone. She had no idea where her loved ones were, how they were doing, or when she’d return home.
Nearly everyday she was plagued with anxiety, anger and often tears.
"I’m so tired of this city.."
Even her first month in Melbourne had been better than this.. Okay, maybe not. They were kind of equal. }
They walked, just as they always do, arm in arm - or rather, Elijah hanging shamelessly off of Meredith's while his long-suffering companion did as long-suffering companions were wont: suffered silently while remaining tragically beautiful. The serious subject they'd been discussing has evaporated into a fit of giggles on Elijah's end, while the hand not currently clinging to Meredith's left arm reaches up to bat playfully at his face.
"Ohhh, Meredith. You look so serious like that!" He chuckles as if it's the most amusing thing in the world to him (and it probably is). "You should smile more, you great grumpy Gus." And the wandering hand has now hooked a single index finger into the corner of Meredith's mouth, tugging it upwards into a half smile in a gross personal space violation.
"Look, see: much better!" Swooning as best he can with one finger in Meredith's mouth and the other hand holding him in place, preventing him from running away, Elijah continues to laugh. "Oh, Mr. Elkwood, ohhh." Elijah winks.
If only he'd stop abusing poor, dear, sweet Meredith for a moment he might notice his darling baby sister. But he only has eyes for one Elkwood at the moment.
"Valentine's day? Valentine's day????? The day in which boys try to curry favor with my dear, sweet darling sugarplum honey bun gumdrop darling baby sister, Petunia?"
"Oh you're absolutely right. Honesty is always the best policy, which is why I feel obligated to inform you that your wardrobe is as terrible as always."
Just wait until Elijah discovered hipsters. (Cyril was truly a man ahead of his time.)
"Thankfully now I am here, and maybe if you work really hard you might even one day be able to afford an ironing board." Doubtful though it was that Cyril would have any idea how to use it except as a bludgeoning device.
Some people just had no appreciation for orderliness.