She had no idea what was going on, but by the posts on the network, Elle was at least thankful that she wasn’t the only one experiencing Atlantis’ latest quirk. She’d woken up feeling normal earlier that day and made herself breakfast, taken a shower, and when she started getting ready for the day had gotten a good look at herself in the mirror - her skin had turned a yellow green color. Only, it seemed that was the start of it. Each time she experienced a new emotion, her skin changed colors again. And again and again. Other than a handful of colors she’d experienced more than once and had made note of, Elle had no idea what most of the colors meant. Keeping track was proving to be harder than one might expect since each time she noticed herself as a new color, her mood would change and she’d change all over again. It was like she was a human mood ring.
Even though she had hoped the color changing would have been over by the afternoon, Elle resigned herself to her embarrassing fate and left for her shift at Cava for the evening. A few people gave her strange looks along the way, and a few customers and coworkers had amused looks on their faces. Most of the time, Elle’s skin shifted back and forth between scarlet and orange red. She knew there was embarrassment and frustration in there somewhere, but it was hard to tell which was which.
Wiping down a few glasses, she heard someone new sit down at the bar, and so she turned to see none other than her sister Alicia sitting there. Her normally customer-friendly face turned deadpan at the familiar face, and she half-heartedly rolled her eyes. One look down at her hands, and she saw her skin turning scarlet again.
“Not one word,” she said and poured a glass of wine even though Alicia hadn’t given her order yet.
Not again, was all Alicia could think about when she looked down at her skin that morning. She started out with a orange yellow and that lasted until she ran into Erik that morning and switched to a blend of magenta, violet and dark purple, luckily she’d managed to mutter something about needing to be somewhere and spent the rest of the day going from nearly every bloody color there was as she worked out, took a swim, went for a horseback ride and eventually decided that she really shouldn’t go back home until this ended and opted to stop by Cava.
She’d planned to order a bottle of wine and go sit on the beach by herself but at the first sight of her sister turning scarlet she burst out laughing despite the warning not to say anything. Her own skin had gone from an orange yellow to a cyan blue as she laughed but took the glass of wine anyways.
“Come on now, we all know red is your color,” she teased.
Elle had mostly tried keeping her eyes down as soon as she’d spotted Alicia sitting there. She hadn’t wanted to come into work at all, but someone had to be there. She noticed the colors Alicia started to turn and had no idea what those meant yet, but from the expression on her sister’s face, she assumed one of them was at least mild amusement.
“I think we both know it’s more your color than mine,” she said with a sigh and decided to say bugger all and poured herself a glass of wine. She didn’t often drink on the job, but it was a slow day and she was going to need this and more to get through the rest of her shift.
“Does anyone know what this is?” Elle asked. She hadn’t been around during the first round of color-changing antics, so she really had no idea what to expect. “Or how long it’s likely to last?” Taking a sip of her wine, she noticed her hands slowly turning back to the yellow green she’d first noticed this morning.
"I don't know, that shade of red really goes with your eyes," Alicia added, shaking slightly with silent laughter. Taking a sip of her wine, she really couldn't help but find this a good turn of events.
Shrugging, she started to turn orange. "I don't think so." She answered. "It's happened before, here and when I was on Quidditch Village," that felt like a bloody lifetime ago.
"Lasted a few days each time, but who knows, we could be mood people for the rest of our lives," she threatened, secretly hoping that wasn't true and her skin started to fade to sap green.
“That was the place you were before here, right?” Elle asked. She’d heard bits and pieces about this other island, mostly from Marcus a couple of times back when he was around, but Alicia hadn’t mentioned it to her very much. “It doesn’t sound much different from here.” Especially now that they had actual Quidditch teams.
Days. This lasted days. Great. The usual weirdness of Atlantis didn’t typically bother Elle too badly, and in the grand scheme of things this wasn’t that bad, but she usually kept her emotions to herself most of the time. It was a little unnerving to know her appearance literally changed with each change of mood.
“Don’t jinx us,” she said before taking another sip. Elle figured that this was only temporary, but she wasn’t likely to test fate.
Alicia nodded in answer. “There wasn’t any war,” that was a big difference. “Everything was about Quidditch though, a bit different. And everyone was from our world.” Leaning back she shrugged. “I couldn’t say if it were better or worse. I guess just different, people didn’t come and go.” The coming and going was one of the things Alicia hated about Atlantis.
“What embarrassing colors have you turned in front of people so far?” Alicia asked challenging Elle.
"No war does kinda tip the scales in its favor," Elle said but then thought about what a place would be like if it completely revolved around Quidditch. Mentally, she made a face. While that probably appeared to be wonderful in her sister's eyes, Elle wasn't so sure. She enjoyed watching the magical sport, sure, but she'd never been as caught up in it as some of her other siblings. Then again, that could easily be said about any other Muggle sports. They simply weren't her thing.
"Well, the first time I noticed what was going on, I was about this color," she said and drew a circle around her face in the air with her finger. "You've seen the shades of red. Other than that… orange red to orange mostly. Oh, orange yellow when I realized Tommy had fallen victim to this same fate." At least they were in the same boat.
"I suppose you've taken this more in stride since it's happened to you a couple of times before."
“It was just weird,” she admitted. “Besides, I like meeting people from other worlds.” Seeing as a lot of the people she surrounded herself with here were from vastly different ones. Alicia couldn’t imagine her life without them now.
Laughing she started to turn simply yellow. “Tommy is stuck like this as well?” Shaking her head she couldn’t help but shake with laughter. “And how is he handling it?” Alicia wasn’t even sure she wanted the answer to that.
“Um…” She paused starting to turn orange-red. “I suppose overall, yeah, had a bit of a moment this morning when I ran into one of my housemates but otherwise, mostly stayed around the same colors.”
“He is,” Elle confirmed with a nod, smiling. “Poor bloke.” She didn’t notice, but she was starting to turn the same yellow as Alicia. “He’s handling it better than I would have thought. Trying to ignore it as much as he can.” Thankfully, she hadn’t been face-to-face with him when she’d first found out about it, so he hadn’t been witness to her laughter.
She gazed at Alicia over her glass as she took another sip. Orange red had been one of the colors Elle had been a couple of times, so she was a little familiar with what the emotion might have been behind it. “What sort of moment?” As far as she knew, Alicia’s housemates consisted of the girl she looked after, Laura, the girl’s father, and another bloke that she didn’t know well. Another mutant. “A good moment? Bad?”
“You really like this guy.” It was a comment not a question. Alicia smiled turning tan, it was a really weird feeling which caused her to turn a little bit greenish cyan as well.
A lot of Alicia felt like she should lie to Elle or simply cut the conversation off but she had memories of Breckentale and other not horrid moments that had her a little more open, not to mention her skin didn’t let her hide much.
Turning orange red she shrugged. “Let’s go with a bit awkward.” She didn’t add more.
Elle paused, not really having expected that observation from Alicia about her and Tommy. She started to turn sap green at the question but then with a small smile and a shrug, she switched over to light purple. “I don’t know. I mean, we’re just seeing how things go I guess.” That was the answer she told most people because it was the easiest. Elle didn’t like focusing too much on her feelings because there were all sorts of complications that crept up inside her mind, so keeping things simple was the easiest way to go about things for now.
But now it was Alicia’s turn to be vague when answering a question. “Awkward?” She shrugged and held up her still purplish hand. “All of this is awkward.”
“Seeing where something goes does not answer how you actually feel about the bloke?” Alicia said leaning forward turning orange-yellow again. She wouldn’t say but she thought someone who wasn’t a horrible human-like Trent would be good for Elle and maybe help her see a better path. Alicia didn’t blame Trent for everything but she sure as a bloody hell thought he was partly to blame.
Scrunching up her nose she started to turn orange and a little white before testing back to orange. “Yeah, awkward, it’s the best way to describe things. And it oddly doesn’t just have to do with turning colors best on how I’m feeling that second.”
“I like him, but I’m still working on sorting the rest out,” Elle said, focusing on moving a few bottles from under the table to the area where they could be chilled for serving later. The largest reservation she had was one that likely wouldn’t ever matter. A part of her just couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Trent ever showed up in Atlantis. Elle wasn’t even sure if she wanted him to show up. She’d changed a lot since the last time they’d seen one another the day of their final job together, and that didn’t even take into account her death and his imprisonment in Azkaban. But it wasn’t as if their time together hadn’t completely revolved around illegal activities. She had loved him, and a part of her missed the softer moments they shared together.
Raising a brow, Elle watched her sister a moment. She’d turned orange herself a couple of times, so she was at least able to get a better read on what Alicia was feeling. “Do you have a reason to feel awkward around one of your roommates?” She asked curiously. “Which one? I assume it’s not the girl, so one of the other two.” Both were rather good looking from what she remembered even if one, the girl’s father, was a little bulky for her own tastes.
“The rest out being?” Alicia had always been the sort to ask more questions than not. She also found herself caring more than she would have about Elle’s life. It was different actually caring who her sister dated and wanting something better for her.
Alicia sat back letting out a big breath of air. She quickly turned teal and the color didn’t waver as most others did with her. Alicia usually looked more tie-dye than not. Right that moment she was just teal. She flashed orange-yellow. “Not Laura or her father,” and her skin flipped quickly to teal. “He’s confusing.”
“The rest likely being something you’d rather not talk about,” Elle said and gave her sister a look. It wasn’t annoyed or irritated, but it clearly gave the impression that Alicia could guess what, or rather whom, she meant. The truth was, Elle didn’t necessarily want to talk about ‘the rest’ either, and she’d actually come to the point over the last several months that she wasn’t purposely trying to pick a fight with Alicia.
Alicia’s awkwardness, though, intrigued her. She smiled, turning a greenish cyan as she gave both of them rather large refills of wine. “So, the other one.” She considered what she remembered about him and nodded. “Confusing as he’s sending you confusing signals or confusing in that you don’t know yet how you feel about him?” Elle took a long sip from her glass.
Alicia watched her carefully, she wasn’t sure if she should push it or not. “Alright,” was what she finally said after a few long moments. She decided if Elle was saying it like that she’d let it go, for now at least. Later on she might ask about it.
“Erik,” she confirmed as she turned light purple and orange. Pausing she took a rather large gulp of her wine. “He’s,” she didn’t even know the right words. “A little bit of both actually,” she admitted turning white for just a flash before going back to the light purple and orange blend. “Haven’t a clue what to think really.” She could feel her heart beat up and she quickly turned teal.
It almost felt like they were having one of their sisterly talks back in Brecktale. Sister to sister, sharing a glass of wine, and talking about men and how they rarely made any sense. The difference was that they weren’t in Breckentale any longer, yet Elle didn’t hate it. It was actually kind of nice. “Erik,” she repeated thoughtfully after another sip of wine and didn’t notice that she’d started to turn yellow. She really was going to have trouble getting through the rest of her shift if she kept this up.
“Figure out what a lot of those colors mean, and I think you might have your answer,” she remarked and tilted her glass towards Alicia. “But it seems to me that you like him more than you think you might. Or want to admit that you might. He didn’t by chance get blessed with this, did he?” She asked, pointing to her yellow face. “Because that would have been convenient.”
The switch in her sisters color had Alicia turning orange, her thoughts going from the confusion she felt to an oddly okay place knowing that Elle was, well, something. It was weird and she should be angry or upset but instead she started to switch to yellow for a moment. That was until she actually heard the rest of Elle’s words.
She turned teal and solid teal at that. She open and shut her mouth a few times and took a sip of wine. “I’m not sure how I feel really matters,” she admitted. “He’s really bloody complicated.”
“Sure it does; why wouldn’t it matter?” Elle said. Of course, she didn’t always take her own advice when it came to relationships, but it was easier to say so when it came to someone else. Plus, she was beginning to feel a little more loose thanks to nearly finishing off her next glass of wine. “You may not know how he feels exactly, but it doesn’t seem that he’s completely indifferent.”
Elle gave her sister a curious look, turning greenish cyan in the process. “Is it even something you’d want to find out or explore?” The question was partly rhetorical, and she didn’t necessarily expect an answer right away or at all. “Every bloke has their own level of complicated,” she said, raising her glass and finished off the wine that was left.
Smiling softly she turned a little greenish cyan. “No, he isn’t indifferent,” Alicia knew that he wasn’t indifferent to her, she knew he cared. What level that care was, well, that was more complicated.
Alicia took a rather large gulp of her wine as she thought about Elle’s question and what she really wanted. One thing she knew for sure was Erik was complicated, a little bit broken, dangerous, but he was kind and generous and Alicia always found herself wanting to spend more time with him. “This one tried to assassinate a president,” she smirked before adding. “Yeah, I want to find out.”
Elle grinned as she started sipping on her third glass of wine. She started to turn a shade of magenta but then flipped to orange quickly at Alicia’s revelation about her not yet beau that wasn’t indifferent. Not expecting that, she coughed and laughed a little, placing her glass down on the bar to keep from spilling what was left. “Well,” she said and quirked her head to the side. “That’s... quite the complication.”
While she had committed a crime or two or three or several during her lifetime, Elle certainly had never tried to assassinate anyone in power. She smirked again, turning back magenta. “So, I hear there’s supposed to be a sail around the island later tonight,” she mentioned somewhat casually but maybe a little randomly.
Her sister’s reaction had her laughing too. She nodded. “Yeah, I know how to pick them,” she teased. Between Sam, Flint, and Erik the one thing they all had in common was being a little bit complicated in one way or another.
“I saw that,” she smiled. “We should go,” Alicia suggested even surprising herself as she turned yellow and teal at the same time. “But we are going to need more wine.” Just as she said that she got a text. “I guess we are going to be escorted by Klaus Mikaelson, up for it?”
“Apparently, you do,” Elle said and finished off her glass. She considered pouring herself another but she held off for the moment considering she was still on the clock. It was kind of amusing. Alicia went for the blokes with complicated pasts yet the one she, herself had started to fancy had a law enforcement background. How things had changed.
She turned teal at the next revelation. Had her sister just invited her out for the evening? Elle had considered it and was part of the reason she’d brought it up, but she hadn’t expected Alicia to be the first to mention it. She raised a brow about the escort. She’d heard of him but only knew the basics. A vampire with an infamous reputation of his own if the rumors were true. Picking out a new bottle of wine, she moved around the bar to the customer side. She was going off the clock now.
“I’m up for it. We should go,” she said with a grin and sat down on the seat next to Alicia, pouring them both refills from the new bottle. “And I think you have a type.”
Alicia opened her mouth, she was simply orange. “What’s that supposed to mean, I have a type?”
“Complicated men with questionable pasts,” Elle said with a casual shrug. “A type.” Though, those questionable pasts were obviously of varying degrees. Not that she saw anything wrong with it, of course. That only made the blokes that much more interesting. “This one’s good looking, so as long as he isn’t a total prat then I say have at it.” She clinked her glass with Alicia’s in a cheers and began turning tan but nothing like her natural color.
“Think he’ll be on the boat?” She asked, raising a brow above her glass just before taking another sip. “Is he the jealous sort?”
Opening and shutting her mouth a few times almost like a fish it took her a few moments to finally get any words out, Alicia turned orange-red for a second before switching back to orange and finally to orange-yellow. She did take a sip, or gulp, after Elle clinked her glass to hers.
“Well,” she admitted sitting back a bit. “You might want to add older to that list.” She shook her head thinking before looking up at Elle’s other question. “I don’t know, he isn’t really the social sort and if he’s deep into a book right now he’ll probably be sitting on the couch reading.” She often found Erik reading when she came home. “I don’t know.” She really wasn’t sure but she wouldn’t be surprised.
Older wasn’t bad, Elle thought to herself. As long as it wasn’t too old. Sometimes a little age on a man was kind of a plus since it generally meant that the immature shit was mostly out of their systems. “If he doesn’t show up then it’ll still be a good time. If he does, though,” Elle paused and smirked, starting to turn magenta again. “Then we can work with that.”
She took another sip of her wine. “If he shows, blame any colors you turn for the night on the drinks. Hell, blame the drinks even if he doesn’t show.”
What the bloody hell was she getting herself into? She really was starting to wonder. She’d already told Erik the colors had happened before but left quickly enough before he could get too many questions in that morning.
She laughed. “I suppose we can just blame the drinks for a bit more color.” She added. “Come on, if we’re going to be doing this, we should probably find clothing that won't clash with our skin.” She paused thinking about it. “Which pretty much means white.” She frowned.
Finishing off her last glass, Elle hopped off of the stool. She was way too tipsy and colorized to worry about finishing off her shift. Besides, with the yacht party happening tonight, the bar was going to be dead. “White.” She frowned, almost matching Alicia’s expression. “Hopefully we’ll both manage to stay a nice tan for the evening,” she said after noticing she was turning back to the more neutral color.
This probably should have been weird, and it kind of was, but it didn’t feel as weird as it could’ve. Going out with Alicia for the evening, talking about their relationships or potential relationships was brand new territory for them. At least it was in this reality.
“Alright, I’m ready whenever you are. We have a little time before the ship is supposed to depart.”
Alicia finished her glass and put it down. “Alright, let’s go, might as well make sure we aren’t fashionably late, wouldn’t want to keep our 1,000 plus year old date waiting.”