When Ravyn left the casino late that night and made her way out into the crisp German air, she sighed sadly up at the stars. She had done well to try and force down her grief in the months since losing Eliot, but it was a bit more difficult that night. Shaking her head as if to try and chase her sadness away, she made her way through the back door of the neighboring building. That back exit opened into a dark hallway and the stairs that led to the floor above Connor’s clinic. With another sigh, she ascended those stairs as she had done every night since having taken over the casino next door.
When she reached the top of the stairs and unlocked the door that led to a small one room apartment above the clinic, she found that Connor had already crawled into bed to get some bit of rest before Christmas morning. She smiled sadly as she again locked the door behind her and moved to hang her long coat on the hook next to where his coat had already been hung upon the nearby wall when he had arrived home earlier that night.
A few moments later, she had since hung up her bag as well, removed her high boots, and moved to take a seat on the bed next to him, her back against the headboard. She glanced at the radio on the stand nearby, but didn’t want to risk waking Connor, assuming it would only be the same three Christmas songs playing across the airwaves anyway.
However, just taking the seat there next to him as he slept seemed to be enough to cause Connor to stir slightly. He murmured softly in his sleep as he subconsciously moved closer to her, draping an arm protectively across her legs as she sat next to him atop the bed. Ravyn gave him another sad smile at the protectiveness he still displayed over her even whilst semi-conscious.
Since going to bed that night, Connor had let his pretty auburn locks free from the tight pony tail he usually pulled his hair back into, as it fell just a couple of inches below his shoulders when loose. Ravyn distractedly let her fingers play in his hair as her thoughts grew deeper, and slightly darker that night.
She had never been that reverent of holidays, especially Christian ones, even before her death. But spending the last four Christmases with Eliot, as well as his last four January birthdays, it was nigh impossible for her not to feel the ache of his absence so very thoroughly now; on the first Christmas she would be spending without him since he broke time itself to save her.
Ravyn found herself looking down at the stone against her chest, with a slight biting of her lip. She was still trying so very hard to not summon Eliot’s spirit forth each time she found herself missing him, which was almost every second. But tonight, that was an especially hard urge to resist.
A slight sigh passed her lips as she continued her inner debate. And that sigh did do well to finally fully awaken the young man who was still only half asleep on the pillow next to her, as her fingers had stroked his hair while he slept.
“You’re home,” Connor smiled up at her, groggily opening sleepy blue eyes as he quietly spoke.
“It’s late,” Ravyn whispered back as she looked down at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she apologized
“Not possible,” he told her sweetly as he moved to push himself into a sitting position next to her, though still remaining so close their legs touched atop the mattress. He then followed her eyes to the necklace, where they had stayed focused through their brief conversation. “Thinking of summoning some Christmas spirits?” he asked her, returning her sad smile.
Ravyn shook her head with a slight sniffle, “I’ve been trying so hard to keep from giving in to the urge to call him to me every night. But tonight it’s just...” she shook her head, rather than finishing the sentence.
“Didn’t he give that to you so you could call him to you?” Connor reasoned softly.
“But if there actually is an afterlife, at least for mortals,” she had to add with another slight sniffle, “to constantly force him back here, away from whatever that afterlife may even be? Isn’t that terribly selfish of me?” she whispered the inner thoughts that she had been entertaining ever since the first time she had spoken to his spirit, all those months ago.
“If he didn’t want to see you, he never would have left part of his soul here with you, would he have?” Connor told her softly as he bravely moved closer to place a soft kiss on her cheek. “And it’s his first Christmas without you too, Ravyn. Maybe he is out there, just waiting to see you again too. I know I would be,” he finished with another gentle kiss upon her cheek.
Their conversation then came to a brief halt at the sound of the building’s only other tenant coming up the back stairs as well. Ravyn wrinkled her nose as she heard his footsteps move past and then into his neighboring apartment with a click of the door behind him.
“I wonder, if he were to press his ear to the wall would he hear us talking in German or English now?” Connor pondered aloud.
“I think the illusion is permanent unless he turns it off. Everyone hears us speaking in German now,” Ravyn reasoned. “Just like we hear them in English. Though he honestly doesn’t have to make me hear anything. I can translate it all in my head without his help, thank you very much,” she muttered. She then looked over at Connor, “Though I suppose you can’t do that. But still,” her voice trailed off again.
Connor just sighed as he placed his arm around her, “Letting him lock up without you? That’s a brave choice. I wonder how many of the casino’s profits we would ‘accidentally’ find in his apartment if we were to look.”
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Ravyn scoffed at the observation, “Luckily, profits aren’t the reason I’m here. Honestly, if the worst thing a Ravnos did was skim money out of the till, I’d consider that a win,” she mumbled.
"He really does get to you, doesn’t he?” Connor observed quietly.
Ravyn shook her head, “You luckily missed the Taylor years. Let’s just say that when there were a Ravnos or two around a couple hundred years ago, they caused massive amounts of trouble and pain. You can never trust anything whenever one of them enters the picture,” she grumbled.
“Which I suppose is why Raynor is making us work with him,” Connor sighed in defeat.
“Still,” Ravyn mumbled, shaking her head as she looked downwards.
Connor sighed again and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, “We were talking about happier things before our lovely neighbor got home, weren’t we?”
“Depends on your definition,” Ravyn said softly. With her own sigh, she added, “I do want to see him. I do,” she assured. “But I don’t know...”
“Don’t know?”
“I mean, me seeing him, talking to him again, as wonderful as it is that I even have that option, I wonder... does it just make it that much harder? All I want to do is hold him again and...” she shook her head once more without finishing the sentence.
“Are we sure there’s no way for you to be able to touch Eliot again? I mean, if he’s actually a ghost of some kind, let alone the ghost of a mage, it still might be possible right? I mean, isn’t that the entire premise behind hauntings? Things moving, stuff like that?” Connor attempted to find some loophole that might make things easier for Ravyn, somehow.
That was when Ravyn looked down in thought again, before finally continuing, “Did I ever tell you about my friend Daeran?”
“Daeran?”
“Yes, I made a few films with him about thirty years ago,” she informed, “and we became... rather close... after working together.”
“OK...” Connor replied, waiting to hear where she was going with this subject.
“When he was a child he lived in a haunted house. Though, it was much worse than just that,” she shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t even be comparing that with whatever it is that Eliot really is or really can do now. It just... if it was possible for something like what Daeran had to deal with then...” she let her voice trail off again.
“I’m really not following,” Connor told her softly.
Ravyn let out a heavy sigh, figuring she may as well continue to tell him since she had already started. “When Daeran was younger, he and his family dealt with something that wasn’t truly a spirit, but it was.... close,” she decided on.
“And it could touch things?” Connor asked hopefully.
“You could say that,” Ravyn scoffed sadly.
“I’m guessing it touched them in not a good way?” Connor asked with a slight drop in volume.
Another heavy sigh, “This thing, this entity, it killed everyone who ever worked for Daeran’s family, and then it actually killed his family too. I’m assuming that had to involve it actually being able to physically interact with things, even before...” she shook her head again.
Connor swallowed hard at her words, but made himself ask, “Before what?”
Ravyn let out a shaky sigh, “Before it took him over.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Connor gasped.
“It possessed him, whenever it wanted to, using him, whenever it needed a body, whenever it wanted to leave the house. It did that for ten years. When Daeran died, and came back as Kindred, it was literally the best thing that ever happened to him. The only way he escaped that thing controlling him,” Ravyn finished the story sadly. “But I suppose that the take away from that terrible, terrible thing happening to him is that these things, spirits, entities, whatever, some of them actually can touch things or even take possession of living people. So if Eliot really is a ghost then...”
“Then he should be able to do all of that too,” Connor finished for her, both of them looking at each other with some strange mix of worry, and maybe even a little bit of hope.
Though Ravyn mentally reprimanded herself for such thoughts a moment later. “But that thing that controlled Daeran, it was evil, truly evil. And Eliot is not that. Maybe that’s the difference?” she asked, more to herself.
Connor scoffed, “Only evil spirits can touch things? Take people over? I doubt that’s the case,” he denied the theory. “How would that even be fair?”
Ravyn looked back at him sadly, “Life isn’t fair, why should death be?” Though Connor only looked down with a shake of his head before Ravyn spoke again, “Besides, this is all a moot point anyway. Even if Eliot could temporarily take control of another body, it would have to be a living person. He sort of implied that he now understood how things work for Kindred. And it would make sense with what happened with Daeran too, when he was embraced.
“Our souls are apparently locked inside our bodies. We can never pass over. It’s what keeps us alive, more or less. And I think it’s also what keeps any other souls from taking us over. It’s why becoming Kindred finally freed my friend. Even if Eliot could do that,” she repeated, “then he would need someone he could do it to.”
“A living person, whose soul isn’t locked inside their bodies?”
“I’m guessing that must be the case,” Ravyn agreed sadly, “so, there’s no point in me even hoping that I’ll ever actually be able to hold him again, however temporarily,” she sniffled again.
“Why not?” Connor asked softly.
“Because I doubt there’s any living person out there who would ever willingly give up control over their very body. And even if Eliot could take control, I doubt he’d ever actually do that to someone against their will. He’s not like the thing that possessed Daeran, remember?” she stated plainly, giving Connor a skeptical look as to why she even had to explain further.
Connor was quiet a long moment before looking back at her again, “There could be... someone willing, I mean,” he told her softly.
Ravyn’s eyes widened at his words, “You can’t be serious, Connor.”
“I’d like to think me and Eliot became friends, of a sort, over these past few years. And that he actually wouldn’t keep control for too terribly long,” he began with a thoughtful smile. “And if it would make you happy, for just one day even...? Then of course I’d be willing to do that for you; give up control for you, just to see you happy again, for however long. I’d do that, for you, Ravyn.”