Where Chaos Reigns ((Calix Kiril))

It was the sort of day where Elijah could feel the chaos in the air.  The boy was pretty sure it wasn’t coming from him, and with how happy Lúth seemed to be these days, he was guessing it wasn’t her.  But the chaos was practically palpable...Elijah could tell.  It was in the son of Discordia’s nature to be extra sensitive to chaos.  It was hanging about now, ever since the boy had woken up.  He had been slightly awake even before his alarm went off at 5:45 that morning.  When he opened his eyes and checked the clock, it said 5:38...leaving Elijah seven minutes before he had to get out of his nice warm bed.  The boy had blinked away the sleep and looked up at the ceiling, frowning slightly as he saw what appeared to be blue and gold sparks.  That was something the Praetor hadn't seen since his mother had come to visit him at camp.  Blue like his eyes, gold like the apple of the Hesperides his mother had turned into the Golden Apple of Discord that made her famous.  Sparks dancing above him...perhaps it had been something Elijah had been dreaming of.  Or maybe he was just seeing things.  Either way, it seemed like a pretty clear message...today, chaos was reigning.  And then it was 5:45 and the boy's alarm clock was going off.  Warily, Elijah shut it off, getting out of bed and ready for his morning routine...an hour long run and and hour in the arena, working with his daggers.  Back to the Principia for a shower and prepped for Morning Muster.  It was a routine that Elijah had down to the T.  But even as he was running and training, he could tell the day was different.  The sparks he had seen when waking up were still there, though invisible.  The small boy could feel them crackling in the air...against his skin...under his feet as he ran.

All this lead to a large amount of distraction for the boy.  He was fidgety during Morning Muster, quickly dashing back to his room to change out of formal wear and something more comfortable for the day.  Elijah didn't care about dressing up for Praetor work...if he had to sit around doing paperwork and dealing with Legionnaires, he wanted to be relaxed.  Although the small boy was still grumpy about Venus shrinking his jeans, he was getting used to the tighter, form fitting pants.  Same with the t-shirts.  At least she hadn't shrunken the blue hoodie he stole (borrowed) from Jack.  The zip up hoodie had been big on Jack, so naturally, Elijah was swimming in the thing.  But it was warm and comfortable, and even though Elijah had stolen it awhile ago and it had gone through the wash many times, Jack's smell still lingered on it.  It made the Praetor feel safe and cozy, as if it was Jack's arms around him rather than a hoodie.  For those long days in the chilly main room of the Principia, the doors opening and closing, it was Elijah's favorite thing to be wearing.  As he pulled on the most amazing garment on the planet (despite it being a zip up, Elijah didn't see the point of putting it on like that when it was big enough to just pull on), the boy tried to ignore the feeling of sparks from the hoodie.  "Static electricity," he mumbled, trying to convince himself that was all it was.  But logic and logical explanations were notoriously lost on Elijah.  He didn't want his hunch about chaos ruling today to be the truth, though at the same time, it was sort of up to him to keep it under control.  And Lúth...depending.

Was Calix out in the main room yet?  Usually Elijah could tell that sort of thing by sounds or quick glances...but he had been so distracted by the chaos that he had no idea where his partner was.  Nobody had given indication during Morning Muster about something odd in the air.  Jack had been acting normal, at least...though at this point, Elijah wouldn't be surprised if chaos didn't affect his boyfriend like it affected everyone else because he spent so much time around the small boy.  Same with River, she hadn't acted any differently either.  When he really thought about it, the Praetor suspected Calix wouldn't notice anything different, either.  Both his best friend (and fellow Praetor) and his girlfriend were children of Discordia.  Really, the Legacy of Bellona was probably more desensitized to it than anyone else.  Either way, Elijah wasn't sure he wanted to test those waters.  He was still dreading the day when Calix snapped.  And not in the way he had with Lúth's kidnapping, but in the scary yelling and throwing stuff and stabbing people way.  Okay, maybe not stabbing people, but Elijah's best friend was a descendent of a warrior Goddess, and had been training since he was young.  Calix snapping would definitely be dramatic and scary.  Maybe it was best to not think like that.  Could descendants of Bellona smell fear?

Peeking around into the main room, Elijah saw his partner calmly working at the long table.  Gods, was the sparking chaos all around really just in Elijah's head?  No one else seemed bothered by it...maybe the small boy was finally taking an actual dive off the deep end.  He would never pretend to be anything less than insane, but in a very sane way.  No one ever questioned a child of Discordia's sanity, partially because if they maintained any, it was a pretty big miracle.  At least, that was how Elijah saw it.  Carefully, the boy walked towards the long table...maybe all the chaos was in his head, but better safe than sorry.  Sitting down in his seat, the boy looked through the papers he had obsessively set out the day before.  Frowning slightly, he flipped through them again...there should have been a report on an incident from yesterday...an argument that had broken out in the Second that had gone right to Praetors Emmanual and Kiril.  It had been nasty, for sure...Elijah wasn't sure if he had been in charge of that or Calix had taken it.  The more he thought about it, the more the son of Discordia's brain started feeling fuzzy.  Well, there was only one way.  As Elijah turned, he took in some things about his fellow Praetor that he had definitely missed at first.  Calix looked stressed...it was in his eyes and creased forehead.  The boy knew there was a lot going on with his best friend...though, against his better judgement, he decided to speak.  "Calix, that report about those girls that came in from the Second yesterday...do you have that, or did I forget I had to do it?"

For the past few days, Calix found himself in a foul mood. He didn’t exactly know why. So many things had been going right. He should have been happy. But he wasn’t. And that made him the most upset of all. Calix thought that he found a permanent light in his tunnel the second he slipped the ring on Lúthien’s finger, and what he felt now had exactly NO correlation with that event (for if it did, the joy he felt in being engaged to her would easily cancel out any negativity), but Calix began to feel seeds of stress and generally bad thoughts taking root in his mind. Calix pushed it down as far as it could. He forced himself to take deep breaths whenever a report he wasn’t expecting until the next hour came early or when an unexpected and unappreciated event decided to skew the rest of his day. It all came with being Praetor of the Legion. He’d been trained to undergo this sort of thing. In between him and Elijah, Calix represented order. Together they balanced each other out. And Calix could do nothing to tip the balance. He had to do his duty. He had to do as he was taught. So he bottled. He kept everything that bothered him holed up in some deep crevice below his chest where he hoped to the gods it didn’t fester. He concealed. Just as any good leader should. Anything for the well-being of his Legion.

Lately, however, the praetor began to notice a bit of this pent up emotion showing. Especially the last few days. He woke up feeling particularly sluggish and kept that from his fiancee, getting ready as he usually did for morning muster. He and Elijah presided over the entirety of the Legion those mornings as usual nothing changing except for the slight twitch in Calix’s hands as he dismissed the Legionnaires. He clamped his over hand over it and rubbed slightly, hoping to ease whatever urge made that occur. From then he made a round or two around the camp, maybe joining some other Legionnaires at the top of the wall, making small talk… but the talk getting smaller as each day went on. It might not have been noticeable to the others, they usually knew the Legacy as a guy of a few words but what came in lieu of the words were thoughts. Thoughts that, for the most part, concerned professional things, but lately not so much. They swam around in his head, filling it to the brim in a way he just couldn’t stand. In a way that gave him a horrid headache. So he’d stand and excuse himself to walk around a bit more, taking deep breaths, trying to focus on one thing. He had to keep a cool head. He had to.

It got to the extent where he decided to forgo that part of his routine one day and keep to his desk, working on paperwork. Something he knew he knew how to do without screwing up. Something horribly monotonous to keep his mind off of anything else. But of course that couldn’t go as planned either. He noticed Elijah entering the main room as well but didn’t make an effort to greet him. The thoughts began again, effectively grounding the possibility of these feelings only coming up during guard duty. They were constant. And they made Calix even more unpleasant. He kept writing, noticing his strokes growing more terse as was his posture. His breathing growing a bit heavy still trying to keep whatever was swimming around in his mind under control. He almost had it too until Elijah decided to speak. It wasn’t like his partner asked a stupid question, sometimes paperwork did get shuffled into the wrong stack and ended up on the other side of the table. If Calix did happen to have it, he’d slide it across, no incident. But today… with everything bottled up, it came pouring out. He slammed his fist on his desk and effectively swept a few folders onto the ground, yelling, “IT WAS ON YOUR DESK YESTERDAY, ELIJAH, GO FIND IT!!!”