It had been nearly an hour since Hollister took his leave and Connor had drifted off to sleep for the evening. Ravyn was still sitting at the edge of the bed, deep in thought. Though that was at least a slight improvement over spending another night crying into her pillow.

With a sigh, she looked over at the stand where the little black jewelry box still sat. Picking it up and opening it once more, Hollister’s words played through her mind again. A sliver of Eliot’s soul? How could such a thing be possible, even? Then again, doing the impossible had always been in Eliot’s skill set.

Then another part of the conversation began gnawing at her. Hollister truly believed that this ‘soul stone’ held some kind of power. And those he consulted about it seemed to believe that it was a power that only Ravyn could access, somehow.

With another soft sigh, she finally lifted the necklace from the box and worked a moment to put it on. It was at least some small way she could honor Eliot. Though nothing would ever seem to be enough, in her mind. As the small stone came to rest against her chest, she could actually feel a sort of heat emanating from it. Though it wasn’t the kind of heat that burned her pale skin. It was more a pleasant warmth. And it was definitely not something one would expect from a seemingly glass stone.

Looking down at the necklace with curiosity, and a bit of wariness, she moved her hand up to take the stone in her fingers. As she did, a slight flash illuminated the bedroom, startling her into looking up. There before her, smiling sadly was Eliot himself. Though it was not Eliot in the strictest sense. It was more akin to how he had appeared to her the day when his astral self led her back to his body to help him finally end his years’ long coma.

“El?” she whispered, her voice breaking as her eyes moved over that vision of him, traces of red tears forming in her green eyes once again.

“Ravyn, my love,” he whispered back, moving closer, tears appearing in his own eyes.

“Have I completely lost my mind now, or is this really you?” she whispered as she stood, forcefully curbing her desire to reach for him, for the moment.

“Depends on your definition of ‘really,’” he offered her another sad smile, also looking pained to not reach for her.

“But you’re dead... aren’t you?” Ravyn sniffled as her eyes moved over him again.

“You’re one to talk,” he teased.

“Eliot,” her sniffle turned into a slight laugh, before speaking again. “Is this your ghost, or something?”

“I suppose that’s as good a definition as any. I mean, my soul never left; not all of it, anyway. It’s still right there, with you, right now,” he told her, as he nodded to the necklace she still held in shaking fingers.

“You gave up any chance of an afterlife,” she pushed past the final word, considering her own memory of the nothingness that followed her own death, “to haunt me?”

“I think I prefer the term ‘visit.’ It seems a little more romantic at any rate,” he offered another small smile. “Besides, I’m only here because of your soul calling out to mine through the stone. If you were busy with something else, I could politely de-materialize until you wanted to see me, and called out to me again.” he offered with a slight smile.

“Like I’d ever not want to see you? I’ve done nothing but mourn you, Eliot. It seems like we always got pulled apart before the prophecy happened. Then, when we could finally be together again...” she just shook her head and looked down as a new wave of sadness overtook her.

“We’ll always be together. Even if not in the physical sense. I always suspected as much. And now my theory seems to have proven true,” he gave her another soft smile..

“A theory?” Ravyn whispered, afraid to take her eyes off of him for even a moment.”

“Seems that tethering our souls together didn’t really end when I...” he shook his head, “after all, souls never die, do they? Yours may be in stasis, locked inside your body, keeping you here in the material world; making you what you are. It seems to be the way things work for Kindred,” he added thoughtfully. “But mine is tethered here too, to yours. Just... without the body, I suppose,” he added softly.

“You’re trapped here? In this stone?” she asked him worriedly as she quickly looked down at where she still held it in her shaking fingers.

“I’m not tethered to the stone, Ravyn, but to you, your own soul. The stone just lets you, well, see and hear me. When you want to, anyway. But I’d hardly call any of it a trap. It’s exactly where I’ve always wanted to be; with you, after all,” he assured her.

Ravyn took a long moment to try and process what he was saying, and what it even meant. When she looked up again she bravely forced her next words, “Hollister thinks that this necklace has some kind of power... or something?” she whispered.

“Power can be, or mean, many different things, darling,” Eliot told her in the same soft whisper.

“I have no idea what that’s even supposed to mean, Eliot,” she returned, desperation shaking her voice.

“Ravyn, love, death has made it possible for me to see even more than I ever saw in life. And I saw plenty,” he added pointedly, “so please don’t be upset at me telling you something I think you need to know.”

“What’s that?” she asked him, looking up again, fear in her eyes then.

“I feel I need to tell you that you spending the rest of eternity mourning me, being this sad at all... It’s not what the world needs. The world may just need you to allow yourself to feel something more than sadness.”

Ravyn let out a small sound of disbelief, then had another thought, “Is that another prophecy? Something you know from what you saw of the future?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Perhaps. Perhaps I just don’t want to spend eternity watching you let yourself get swallowed by despair. Perhaps both,” he offered softly.

Ravyn looked down for another long moment as she thought on his words. Then she suddenly looked up again, as though afraid to ask her next question, but somehow needing to. “Did you know?”

“Know what?” Eliot asked with a curious look.

“Did you know that you were going to die only four years after saving me?” Ravyn answered, voice breaking again as she held his gaze.

He sighed softly, “I was tethered to you. It was only your future I caught the tiniest glimpses of, not my own.”

Ravyn scoffed, “You talk like those are two different things.”

Another sigh from Eliot, “Like I said, I only caught occasional moments in your own future. Even if I wasn’t present in them, that didn’t lead to me automatically assuming it meant I was dead. Of course it was a possibility. It’s a possibility for everyone. But even so, even if I had heard some mention of my own death in those moments of your future, which I didn’t, I’d still have had no way of knowing where and when and how it actually happened. I only saw things you were there to witness, after all,” he assured softly.

Ravyn was quiet for another long moment, thinking on his words once more. “So what exactly is it that ‘the world’ needs me to feel instead of missing a man I love so much?”

He offered another sad smile before trying to give an answer, “I can’t tell you what to feel, as that wouldn’t be an honest feeling anyway. I just need you to know that there’s so much more that you could do if you just find a way to fight past the despair. I saved you from being eaten alive by those horrid vipers, don’t let your own sadness devour you now instead.”

----------------------------------------

After her initial talk with Eliot, in some form, Ravyn spent more than one night soul-searching. Finally, she did come to the conclusion that yes, there was indeed something else she was feeling, besides grief. And that emotion was simply... anger; massive amounts of it. And that rage was enough to inspire her to do something, just as Eliot suggested she could, and should.

Ravyn didn’t know if those words truly had been Eliot giving her some glimpse into her own future without actually saying as much, considering how careful he had always been about changing things before. Then again, the part of the prophecy that he had wanted so badly to save her from was now done and over with. Now, there was a whole new future, and Ravyn had no way of knowing how much of it he had truly seen. But she knew it was more than she had. And that was enough to set her into action to do anything she could, indeed.

As she awoke from her daily slumber, she looked over at where Connor waited near the bed, offering her a sad smile as her eyes moved to him. Ravyn pushed herself up from the mattress and let out a somewhat determined sigh before speaking, “Let’s go see Hollister,” was her simple statement as she stood.

Connor blinked at the suggestion, as she had not even really left her bedroom, let alone the house, since Eliot’s death. “Hollister?”

Ravyn attempted a reassuring smile, but her more prevalent emotion was determination, and that simmering anger, of course. “I think I’ve had enough of London.”

Connor swallowed worriedly but simply nodded and moved to get the keys and take her where she wished. After all, giving her whatever she wanted or needed was the one constant desire for any of those bound, as he now was.

Once they arrived at Hollister’s haven and exited the car, Connor finally spoke up, though quietly, as they moved toward the extravagant double doors to their Prince’s home. “Is it Los Angeles that you mean for us to go back to?” he asked, the worry obvious in his tone.

“Of course I dearly want to go back home,” she agreed softly as the servants opened the doors to them. “But there may be somewhere else I need to go first.” And that was the only elaboration she gave before the servants led them inside.

They did have to wait for a short time before the Prince could see them though. Hollister was in one of his own council meetings when they arrived. It seemed there had been one nearly every night since Hitler’s reign of terror began. Kindred rarely concerned themselves with much of human politics, as their own power usually superseded that of the humans who thought they were running things. But when a dictator came to power, it was difficult not to have that human world spill over quite infuriatingly, and tragically at times, into their own world.

When Hollister finally met them in the main hall, he followed after the Primogen exiting his council chambers and heading back to their own havens. As the last of them left his home, he let out a deep sigh before turning to where Ravyn waited to see him, Connor standing behind her, worried blue eyes downward.

“Went that well, huh?” Ravyn greeted him wryly to cover her own worry as he was looking none too happy that night either.

Through another sigh, Hollister moved to give her a small kiss on the cheek in greeting before responding, “It’s times like these that make the Sabbat’s take on humanity almost seem reasonable,” he muttered before forcing his usual charming smile.

“I guess that answers that,” Ravyn said warily, though quietly.

“So Ravyn, my dear, please tell me that you’ve got some good news to give me about that bauble around your neck,” Hollister was the one to begin before she could tell him her actual reason for visiting him that night.

She was a bit caught by the question, as she had been busy trying to find the best way to get what she needed from him, not immediately thinking he’d be asking for something from her instead. Though, with his interest in ‘that bauble,’ it wasn’t all that surprising in all honesty.

“Really stacking up on bad news tonight, then?” she attempted to joke, though his dark look quickly made her continue. “Honestly, Hollister, so far, all it’s allowed me to do is talk to him. I know, that’s likely not the kind of power you were hoping for. I’m sorry,” she made herself add more quietly.

“Talk to him?” Hollister scoffed. “Useful,” he added with more bitterness as he reached for a glass offered to him by a passing servant.

“I’m not a mage, Hollister. It may take time for me to figure out what, if anything else, it may even do. I’m sorry,” she repeated with her own look down.

“And do you have anything else to offer me tonight, besides excuses, and apologies?” he continued, the stress of the current status of the world doing its best to drown out all the previous poise and charm he normally displayed.

“Well, I have a plan. A small one. The start of one, at any rate,” she attempted to force assurance into her voice. “But I need to know if it would even be possible.”

“A plan?” Hollister scoffed again. “And what plan would that be?”

“I was planning on leaving London,” she told him bravely, causing Connor’s eyes, as well as hers, to both fly to Hollister to watch for his reaction.

Hollister let out a derisive laugh, “Well, considering we just got bombed for seven months straight and you aren’t, in fact, a British citizen, I guess running back home to America would be the logical plan, wouldn’t it?” He shook his head as he took a deep swig of blood from the glass. “Well, allow me to recommend against going to take in a Broadway show or whatever it is you’d rather be doing other than dodging bombs and talking to your now dead lover,” he scoffed, ignoring her slight flinch. “That was the other piece of good news I got tonight: It seems the Sabbat have taken over the Big Apple. So it would likely be just as safe for you as London these days.”

Trying to push past his callous statement that easily stirred her still very fresh grief, as well as that piece of news, Ravyn forced composure and continued, “Look inside my head if you must, Hollister. That wasn’t where I planned on going just yet.”

Narrowing his dark eyes at her, his already thin patience caused him to do just that. A moment later, his expression completely changed to one of intrigue as well as a slightly impressed look of disbelief. “You want to go to Berlin?”