Elizabeth (livingmemory) wrote in st_margarets, @ 2014-03-22 21:38:00 |
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Current mood: | calm |
Entry tags: | character: alec constantinides, character: leon vincent, location: the library |
Log: Inquisitive nature
WHO: Alec & Leon
WHEN: 15th March 2014
WHERE: The library
If there was one thing that Alec would never ever tire of no matter how old she got or how many times she watched the world change around her it was knowledge. Life was boring and nothing without it, especially as with every new generation of human more literature was born of new creativity and she thirsted for it in much the same way she did experiences of every five hundred or thousand years she had on the earth.
In the Carnival she had filled her caravan with books upon books, but had been forced to leave all of them behind when her regeneration had chosen a new body and new age for her to tackle and as such she was eager to replenish her reservoir.
Granted she was still coming to grips with the school and this new body, but Alec wasn't one to be held back by anything or anyone. She was who she was, male or female, it didn't matter. Thankfully she had mastered the gait of the walk so she no longer looked like an awkward new born baby deer when moving and instead had a distinct sway to her hips as she moved.
As she moved through the library she left the scent of vanilla in her wake and she emanated a warmth which could be felt a few feet away, a constant reminder that she wasn't human and very far from it in fact, but that hadn't stopped her from admiring and enjoying the human species for as long as she could remember.
Pausing she bit her full lower lip and tilted her head which sent her dark hair cascading over one shoulder, delicate fingers sorting through a nearby collection of books on Greek History and Mythology because it was always interesting to see how different authors depicted those times, especially as she could review it with an experienced eye and it was always a pleasant surprise when they hit pretty close to the mark.
With a fairly sizable collection of books Alec drew back a chair and settled her slender form down, remembering to cross one leg over the other before she just lost herself in what had been written.
---
Leon was in the library that day as well, three books open on his lap, one stacked on top of the other as he poured over them and, finding an item in one book, switching to another with a careful turn of the cover. His notebook was beside him, opened and scrawled with notes on magic symbols found in history around the Middle Ages. A time before science became more prolific and people stopped believing in magic, though it had never ceased to exist.
It was the smell that caught the Haitian's attention first. Something warm and cozy, like someone was baking something, which was an odd sensation to have while in a library filled with dusty volumes and magically bound tomes. He looked up, pushing the strands of his dreadlocks out of the way to let his eyes follow where his nose told him the scent originated from. That girl, in the chair, he realized. She must have just sat down because Leon didn't remember her being there when he had delved into his multiple volumes.
As he studied her from across the reading area, Leon realized that this was not just any girl, but the new girl from the Carnival, Alec, who he had been in brief conversation with before Mena had seemingly recognized her - or was it him? The proceeding conversation had been so confusing and surprising for the Voodooist that he'd felt the need to not intrude on the reunion and had walked away wondering just what kind of need might arise wherein one might request - or require - a sex change from male to female.
That was when his hazel eyes started to study Alec in earnest. She had been a he? While pronouns were not necessarily a determining factor on how Leon treated others, it was still very curious to him to try and picture this beautiful girl with her dark hair and long legs as anything other than what she appeared. He might have forgotten he was staring at her, so caught up in the ponderings of his mind and he completely forgot the stack of books on his lap.
---
Alec despite her apparent interest on the information littering the pages beneath her dark coloured nails (because of all the things to master she had mastered nail polish) became aware of being watched. Call it years of being looked at or rather being Nine Lives, but Alec had a bit of an awareness when it came to people watching her.
She waited a beat and then flicked her eyes up, regarding Leon from beneath very long very dark lashes, the blue of her eyes a startling contrast and her lips soon curved into a slow amused smile. "Don't you know it's rude to stare?" She teased, the tone of voice warm and her expression anything but insulted, it was clear that she didn't mind his attention.
It helped that he was very pretty to look at.
---
When Leon found his regard matched by the girl, finding the striking eyes she had a bit of a breathtaking experience at first glance, he knew there was color darkening on his already darker skin. And then she smiled and he knew she was amused at having caught him watching her, staring, even, and he looked down at the stack of opened books on his lap with a heated face.
"Sorry," he muttered, reaching up to rub his arm, finding he suddenly didn't know where to put his hands, and the tattoos that marked them, sigils and symbols, were not any help in guiding his decision as he awkwardly shifted on the chair. Even though she sounded like she wasn't angry, he was still embarrassed to have been caught.
"I just... I mean, I was just..." Closing his eyes, he took a breath. "Hello."
---
Alec watched on with a distinct light in her eyes as it was clear he was embarrassed that she’d cauht him staring, especially if his nervous movements were anything to go on. “I wasn’t complaining,” she pointed out with a slow confident smile as she leaned forward, resting her chin in the palm of her hand, lips still curled into that smile. “There are worst people I could be stared at by.”
“Hello yourself,” she murmured a moment later, her voice deeper than most others, a huskier tone on the accent of her voice.
She bit her lower lip and stretched out her hand, bracelets of varying types dangling from her slender wrist. “Alec.”
---
Leon blinked, almost certain what she said was a compliment of some kind, but he didn't want to assume, even as much as he was sure, especially as he couldn't take his eyes off her and her fluid movements as she cupped her chin.
As she extended her hand, Leon's eyes were drawn to the long fingers and the bracelets that decorated her wrist, his curiosity growing as he quickly stood, one hand keeping his books from sliding off his lap while the other reached out to accept. His own hand was decorated with jewelry, and the fingers that clasped hers in greeting were inked with black symbols. "I know. I mean, I don't know, but we've met. Sort of. I'm Leon."
---
Alec’s head tilted in much the same way a bird’s did when something piqued their interest and Leon’s markings on his hands had definitely done that. She had seen a great many things in her time, but humanity never failed to surprise her. Her grip remained fixed and her thumb brushed over one of the marks, curiosity clear on her features.
“Of course,” she said with recognition dawning on her face. “From the journal system.”
She was still holding onto his hand and the time spent with hers on his was probably longer than it should have been, but she had never been one for conforming. “Nice to finally put a face to the name.”
---
"Oh, yes. Nice. Very nice," Leon swallowed, his hand trapped within hers because pulling it away would be rude as she examined - stroked, even - his markings.
"They're glyphs," he supplied. "I use them in my magic." Watching her features while she wasn't looking, Leon let his eyes move over her now that he was closer. She was flawless, and the way she held onto his hand, the touch of her skin on his, was intoxicating. He'd not seen someone so beautiful in a long time - not counting the spirits that danced at the bonfire - and he was just stunned.
---
“Fascinating,” Alec murmured thoughtfully as she passed her eyes over the markings, head tilting again and touch passing over the different markings she could see littered on his olive skin. Her teeth slipped out to catch on her pink lower lip, a smile curling her mouth once again. “I should apologise,” Alec admitted as she realised rather belatedly that she was still holding onto his hand. “I have a habit of touching just because I can.”
Lived too long, seen too many things not to just reach out and grasp things lest they slip through her fingers.
“I know it’s not always appreciated.”
Not that it had stopped her from running the tips of her fingers over another marking. “How do they work exactly?”
---
"No, it's fine," it was more than fine, actually, but Leon would just leave it at fine. He watched how she caught her lip between her teeth and was mesmerized by the sight, only looking down again when she moved a finger over another mark.
"They're symbols of power, like built in charms, and they hold a charge. I can use them for... a lot of things. The charge is regenerated from my own spirit over time once it's used." Again his hazel eyes drifted up to Alec's face, seeing her study his tattoo.
"So I saw that you were from Greece, or...?"
---
Alec was listening, closely and intently, taking in everything Leon was telling her. “Remarkable,” she breathed as her thumb brushed over his knuckle and trailed back up to follow the path the remaining marks took. “I suppose the stronger the spirit the stronger the charge.” She was fascinated that much was clear in how she regarded the marks and lifted her gaze to seek out those hazel eyes with flecks of green and gold present.
“Ancient Greece to be exact,” she shared with a lift of her shoulder.
She pushed hair behind a pierced ear, a glimmer of metal wrapped around the cartilage. “It’s a very long story.”
---
The path of Leon's remaining black marks included the linear scars in the skin of his forearm and following like tick marks all the way to the crease of his elbow. It was where he cut himself for the blood needed to imbue and enchant one of his dolls and there was a fresh mark wrapped under bandage just under his sleeve from the cut he'd made to make the doll of Andrei. "Yes, exactly." Leon smiled and he wasn't afraid or shy of the scars he wore. They weren't in any way cutting like some people self-mutilated under psychiatric distress - or at least he didn't see it that way - they were as much a mark of his craft as the tattoos were, and he didn't make any effort to hide them.
"Ancient Greece?" His eyebrows rose, "I mean, I've got time if you're in a story telling mood." And to be honest, he wasn't ready yet to be gone from her presence.
---
Alec’s eyes ran past the markings on his hands and trailed along the scars she could see scattered across his forearm all the way up to his elbow, her attention wandering from the old marks to the fresh bandage, curiosity angling her head before she caught his eyebrows as they rose, lips curling into a smile.
“I look good for it, don’t I?” She remarked teasingly before she dragged her dark nails over his skin, returning to his hand at which point she pushed a breath. “Have you ever heard of the Phoenix?” Probably the easiest place to start.
---
The way she angled her head definitely spoke of curiosity and it reminded Leon of a creature of some kind. A cat, maybe, attention piqued on a particular object. That the object of her interest was his hand and arm made the voodooist a little dry in the mouth, and he cleared his throat, licking a pierced lip before nodding again.
"You do, actually," teeth flashing in a quick smile, Leon shifted his books to the table so he could sit beside her, on the edge of his own chair to be near for her story. "A Phoenix? Yeah, of course. Fiery bird who symbolizes life, death, and rebirth. Right?"
---
Alec watched the way he came that much closer, touch lingering on his dark marks and eyes flicking up to catch his as she almost gave a coy smile. “Right.” She blinked her eyes in a way that was not that dissimilar from a bird before she gave a breathy laugh, dark hair being combed over her shoulder as she tilted her head at Leon.
“Originally came from Ancient Greece.”
She didn’t think she needed to give any more clues than that or so she hoped.
---
Leon nodded, expecting her to go into a story of how a Phoenix saved her from death, gave her eternal life, teleported her through time, something, anything more, but she didn't. Frowning slightly, he blinked when she did, his eyes searching hers, and he opened his mouth to ask if there was more when it was as though a lightbulb went on in his mind, illuminating him to the obvious answer she was giving him.
"You-- Oh. Oh!"
Raised around some strange things in his life, both incredible and horrible things that would, if shown to most normal kids his age, would probably send them to the psych ward, it was still a shock to Leon to absorb the fact that this girl - boy? Both? what was up with that conversation? - was actually the immortal bird of legend.
And she was touching his hand.
"I just... I..." what did one even say to the bird? "I'm honored to meet you, Alec." And immediately a thousand questions came to his mind, but he reeled it in and held it back, just savoring the fact that now he could probably say he'd seen it all. It explained the way she cocked her head, the way she blinked, even her fascination with his marks became almost ethereal.
---
Alec bit her lower lip as the realisation dawned on Leon and she found it sort of adorable the way in which the shock set in and then the wonder replaced it before he mentioned how it was an honour to meet her and for the first time in a long while her cheeks flushed with colour.
“Hopefully I won’t too fall from the things you’ve read,” she murmured as she chuckled softly. “I find that I am frequently depicted in ways that are either very accurate or not at all, but any publicity is good publicity, right?”
Of course she was still coming to terms with the fact that this regeneration she had returned as a girl rather than the male form she was so used to and comfortable with.
---
"Uh, yeah, that's what they say," Leon nodded, smiling a little, studying her face. Did a Phoenix want publicity at all? He was surprised she was so open with what she was, but then again, this was a school for all kinds of supernaturals. He thought his days of being surprised by what he saw walk through the doors were long over.
"Do you, I mean, if you're so old, why are you here as a student? You've probably got more knowledge and control than anyone else here." Maybe even Ms. Menides herself. Leon was still trying to absorb everything that she was telling him.
---
“Now, that, is a very long story,” Alec admitted with a rueful chuckle. “It’s… complicated.” And by complicated she of course meant messy and just plain confusing. “I wasn’t always this way and I wasn’t always this young, my memory isn’t what it once was and I’m still finding my feet.”
Belatedly she realised she was still touching him and allowed herself a final exploration, the light feather like touch running along his forearm until she returned to him his arm. “The Ringmaster thought it best that I recover here, especially as the Carnival isn’t a place for somebody still rousing from what feels very much like a dream.”
“Honestly? I just don’t think he knew what to do with a young girl instead of the man he’d been accustomed to.”
---
Finding her feet? Had something changed? Leon blinked, leaning closer as he recalled the lore on Phoenix that he knew. The regeneration, she must mean. She was recently immolated and restored and it had... changed into a woman? It made sense that maybe she had lost some memories after an ordeal like that. Leon could only imagine.
Also having forgotten their hands were joined, Leon looked down when she moved her touch on his arm and he felt his skin heat where her fingers left, not to mention his cheeks, and he settled the arm on the side of the chair again. Thank The One he'd been blessed with a darker complexion that hid a blush better than others. He couldn't remember a time when he'd felt so attracted to a girl at first sight and, of course, it had to be a timeless Phoenix. Who had a chance with that?
"Um, I was going to ask about that," he said with an awkward rub against his neck. "I mean, the journal conversation with Mena. You used to be a man? Was that part of your... uh, what do you call it, rebirth?"
---
“She did do a wonderful job of making the entire world think I had undergone some sort of actual sex change,” Alec remarked with a soft chuckle which was deeper than it had any right to be, her voice was definitely huskier than most girls. Once more her chin returned to the palm of her hand and her eyes took in every inch of Leon’s face, noting the freckles which decorated his face. She had an overwhelming desire to reach out again and touch, but this time she refrained, figuring she had already taken enough liberties as it was.
Alec nodded her head and her touch brushed over her bracelets. “It was. I was fully expecting to come back as I always had in the past, but this time I came back as well, this.”
She dropped her head and gave her new body a once over. “I mean to be fair it’s not the worst I’ve ever looked, but adjusting is… interesting to say the least.”
---
"Wow, I just... I mean you..." Leon had a thought he was going to share, but it slipped his mind somewhere between her crystal colored eyes meeting his and the way she spoke, that lower lilt to her voice. He cleared his throat. "That is, I think you're beautiful. Really." he admitted, having no qualms about saying it, either. She was. "What did you look like as a guy? Very different or..." or would he have been equally attracted to her male form? The thought gave him a curious tilt to his head because it wasn't just her appearance, but there was definitely something more about her that drew him in. She was vibrant and life
"And, by the way, if Mena hadn't said anything, I doubt anyone would have guessed that about you. You... well, you seem to be adjusting well." He tossed some of the errant dreadlocks over his shoulder and tried to act normal, tried to remember what acting normal even was.
---
Alec was rather taken aback by the honesty of Leon as it was not something she encountered often, especially as people she found like to guard the things they said and were careful about saying what was on their mind. She? Had no such qualms. His compliment drew a slow smile out of her, a touch of colour filling her cheeks and a soft crinkling could be seen in the corners of her eyes.
And then she gave into her desire to touch, reaching across to smooth the width of her thumb over the freckles, a familiar tilt of her head soon followed. "Says you," she pointed out with a sincere tone to her voice. "You're quite blessed yourself." And he was, she'd have to be blind not to see it.
She ducked her head into a light laugh and she bit the corner of her mouth. "I had much the same colouring and I had been called pretty in my time." Alec held a finger up and gestured for Leon to wait as she rummaged in her rucksack, pulling out a book of photographs she'd been given by Nathaniel in the hopes of helping along her memories. The same book she had been carrying with her since her arrival at the school.
"This was me in my male form." Different, but very much the same, the essence that made Alec Alec was still present, thankfully.
She dropped her hand away. “And thanks, that’s good to know. I was worried.”
---
Leon felt flattered that she had smiled at his compliment, and he smiled back, but almond shaped eyes blinked when she simply reached out and... touched him. Her stroke made him lean into the touch a little, before he realized it, and when she said he was blessed, he knew she must feel the heat of his skin against her hand. "Oh, I... thanks." Blinking again, he gazed at her like he was under some kind of spell until she broke eye contact and reached for a picture.
Taking a breath, Leon leaned over to see, viewing the picture she presented. The similarities in the male version of her, and her now, were striking. He looked from the picture to her and then back again, comparing them. Yep. Her male form had definitely been striking, just like he thought. "I can see it." he smiled. "You were... well," shifting on his seat, Leon braced his elbow on the armrest and just went ahead and said it, "you were beautiful as a man, too."
"What was it like? Just... waking up like you are now? How does it work? You mentioned the carnival."
---
She had felt the heat and made a note of it, for recall later. And then her lips tugged into a further smile, tips of fingers tracing the photograph. “I’m glad you think so. I would have hated to disappoint.” She closed the book a moment later and then frowned ever so slightly as he went on to ask how she had felt after waking as a woman or girl, whatever.
“Honestly?” Alec said as she stole a look at Leon. “It was traumatic. I’ve never been female before and I was so utterly convinced that this regeneration would be the same as all the others, but then I appeared like this, naked and the shock was difficult to overcome.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that my Ashes Keeper helped.” Nathaniel had been shocked to begin with before becoming very amused, which hadn’t sat well with her. “Djinn’s have a strange sense of humour or so I’ve found.”
---
Whatever Leon had been reading and studying in his books was forgotten as he listened to the phoenix's lyrical voice tell him more. His eyes drifted to her mouth as she spoke and her colored lips, then back to her clear eyes, like glacier water. The dark raven hair that fell across her shoulder as she spoke looked so incredibly soft that Leon wished he was as forward as she and could just reach out to touch it. He refrained, telling himself sternly to get a grip, particularly when she mentioned something called an Ashes Keeper. That sounded pretty official.
"He's a Djinn?" why Leon assumed it was a man, when before Alec had been a man, too, didn't occur to him, but it seemed like the natural pronoun to use. If she was attached to anyone like that, it just made sense. "He uh, you and him? I mean, you know. That sounds like a really important job. Something you'd only trust to someone special."
Scolding himself, like he was some school boy with a crush on the teacher, Leon told himself, again, to reel it in. He'd just met her and already he was concerned about, jealous, even, of her Djinn lover? Pull it back, Leon. Just pull it back.
---
“He is,” Alec affirmed with a small smile as Leon was sharp enough to make the leap before she watched as he then jumped to that particular conclusion and she laughed, she couldn’t help herself, especially as it was Nathaniel. Sure they’d slept together and they cared for one another, but Alec was far too Alec and Nathaniel was Nathaniel for it to ever work out long term. “Nothing like that,” she said with a shake of her head. “He’s a trusted friend, valued above everybody else and he like me possesses the gift of immortality. He is very special to me, more than I’m sure he realises, but it’s probably better that way.”
She hitched her shoulder upwards.
“I love him, but he does enjoy when people stroke his ego.”
---
"And..." Leon added another question after a pause, "Where is this guy? Why isn't he here with you?"
Immortality, Leon guessed, had to be a pretty lonely existence and if she had someone she loved who she could endure it with, maybe even enjoy it, then that was what she deserved to be around. He was struggling to fathom why she, a Phoenix and eternal being, was here at St. Margaret's when she could be anywhere in the world with her immortal Djinn. It was a testament to the school that she trusted it to, even wanted it to, be a place she could reside. Then again, Leon couldn't imagine why she'd have been in a carnival, either. She seemed too transcendent for all of that, but Leon had a very poor upbringing wherein he had imagined all kinds of things in other places in the world that were more fantastic, more wonderful, than his meager and humble starts. Alec had to know what those things were and how to get them and yet, here she was, sitting before him in a supernatural high school library reading the same books he would read. He was purely and simply in awe.
---
“He’s with the Carnival still,” Alec said easily as she sat back, stretching her arms and hooking both hands over one of her knees until she had fully extended both arms illustrating the double jointed nature of both. “He can never be that far from his… vessel and his vessel is currently in the hands of somebody at the Carnival. Besides, we’re not joined at the hip.”
She offered him a further smile. “You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”
A soft regard overtook those eyes of her. “I always did like an inquisitive nature.”
---
"Oh, I just thought..." shaking his head, Leon banished the thought from his mind. Frequently at this place, what he once thought turned out to be just not true, and now was no different. He knew only a little about Djinns, but did remember the bit about their containers. Vessels. Trapped creatures and it was actually rather tragic.
"I am, sorry. I just-- You do? Er, you did?" Leon really didn't know what was wrong with him. He had never been so instantly drawn to someone like he was to Alec. "Well, knowing is power, right? I'm just glad it doesn't seem to bother you. All my questions." Giving an easy chuckle of his own, Leon let his eyes move to where her hands were locked on her knee, then back to her face.
"Sorry, I'll let you get back to your reading but... Maybe sometime we can meet up again. I have a lot of other questions, if you don't mind answering them."
---
“I do,” Alec murmured with a slow smile and a certain nod.
She angled her head to watch him, running her gaze over him and letting it settle in certain places before it drifted. He really was quite beautiful to look at and Alec was not the shy type, hadn’t been from the first day she had set foot on this Earth.
She freed up one hand and reached out, catching him by the wrist and with a gentle movement she had his palm displayed at which point she in a elegant script wrote several distinct digits, her phone number to be exact.
“When you want to meet me again just call this number,” she said as she regarded him through her lashes with lips curled. She lingered in his space for a few moments until withdrawing, allowing him his hand back as she dropped her touch away and placed the pen to one side. “The sooner the better,” she said with a pointed smirk.
---
Leon was stunned and, for several seconds, couldn't move. He felt as though the movement of her eyes over him were like physical touches and her actual physical touch burned in such a nice way. Closing his fingers over the number she had written, Leon pulled his hand slowly back to himself and nodded. "I will. Do that, I mean. Soon."
Swallowing, and thinking he better leave before he made a fool of himself - if he hadn't already - Leon gathered up his books and, careful not to smudge the ink on his hand which he had every intention of putting into his phone as soon as he left the library, he gave her one more smile.
"It was really nice to meet you, Alec. I'll talk to you soon."