Perfection of the Vertically Challenged (Elijah)

She was stuck in a rut. It seemed that Mia did the same thing day after day, week after week, and in reality, she did. She rose in the morning. She went for a jog. She showered. She worked in the infirmary. She trained. She showered again. She ate at the correct intervals. She eventually tucked herself into bed, only to begin the cycle anew the next morning. Occasionally, she received letters from her parents, detailing their lives, delivering family news, and sharing personal musings from the inner workings of her parents’ minds. Even so, Mia, the poor Greek, was stuck in a rut that she couldn’t escape.

That’s actually what had the girl lying in bed, just staring at her ceiling. No matter how boring it was, she told herself, it was infinitely better than that stupid rut. She stared at the ceiling and everything she had decorated the space around her bunk with: multitudes of paper, posters, and pictures she had duct taped there. Sighing, she rolled on to her side. The Greek clenched and unclenched her hand repeatedly, watching the tendons in her wrist become defined each time her fist closed. ‘What a bore…’ she thought, ignoring her hand and gazing at the pictures on the nightstand. One of her parents, another of Matthias and her, and a third of her odd, mix-matched group of friends sat there, each resting in its own frame. The smiling faces made the Greek smile in return, and gave her an idea. With a face-splitting grin, she jumped out of bed, and ran out of the barrack.

Soon enough, Mia was bursting through the door of the Principia, calling out for her dear friend in a sing-song voice. “Ooooh, CAAAALLLLIIIX~! Are you hoooooome?” Her call to her dear friend was… answered by silence. Pouting a bit, Mia took to looking around the main room. She gaped a bit, temporarily forgetting the absence of her dear friend. The room, while it was on the larger side, seemed to pull a reverse-TARDIS and be smaller than it actually was. Paper work was stacked high on two separate desks on opposite sides of the room, neither with a page out of place. She smiled to herself as she ran a finger along the edge of the desk closer to the door. ‘So tidy, the Praetors…’ She thought to herself, wondering which desk belonged to her ‘straight-and-narrow’ friend. She moved on from the desks, when she caught sight of the massive map on one of the tables scattered about the room. Leaning over it, Mia smiled a bit to herself when she realized that it was a map of camp and the surrounding areas. The tapped the spot labeled prima cohors lightly before gliding her finger across the paper following her normal routine. “Why is this so entertaining…?” she muttered, hearing footsteps behind her.

Despite the fact that the days were getting longer, Elijah still yearned for more daylight.  Maybe it was this final hurdle, getting out of the winter months and all.  Ceres would be getting Proserpina back soon, which meant spring and warmth.  The boy was still wondering if he was getting more and more sensitive to the cold the longer he was away from Bridgewater.  It was never warm in Bridgewater, and even though Montauk summers didn't get incredibly hot, they were much warmer than Maine.  Either way, it wasn't like Elijah was planning on ever going back to Bridgewater.  Maybe a quick goodbye to his father and Jody, but nothing long term.  Not that the boy was totally sure where he wanted to settle down anyway.  New Rome sounded like just as good an option as New York City.  Maybe Los Angeles...it would always be warm in LA, though the west coast seemed like a world away even though it was just the opposite side of the country.  Shaking out his head, the son of Discordia snorted softly.  He wasn't even 18 and he was already thinking about settling down.  That was ridiculous...the way he saw it, the boy had a few more years at camp, still.  And although Elijah couldn't put Praetor on a college application or job resume, he got invaluable experience doing what he was doing.  It would make him a good leader someday...a good teacher.  If he chose to return to the mortal world at some point, the experience and learnt abilities would show through, even if he couldn't use the title.  It was amusing to remember a time where he would heckle his classmates running for student offices.  Although he had no real way of knowing, Elijah was pretty sure he was doing a lot more work as a Praetor than a class president did.

"The future..." the boy mumbled as he walked away from the arena.  He had been called to help with a spar that had gotten a little out of hand.  It wasn't too uncommon with the Romans.  By nature they were battle-minded and stubborn.  Friendly spars often went further once the Romans were getting out the aggression.  It had even happened to Elijah himself a few times.  It was why he mostly preferred to train on his own...taunting a child of Discordia could be dangerous...the chaos made for a volatile nature.  At least, it did in the Praetor.  Lúth and he were very different in that way...while Elijah was loud and angry and violent, Lúth was quiet and dangerous.  Elijah was fine breaking bones, but Lúth could use words to snap someone like a twig.  They both embodied very different sides of their mother, though in the end, it was still down to chaos.  At this point, the small boy was praying for a little quiet.  His brain had been a swirly chaos mess for weeks now (don't think about it), and today was one of the first days Elijah was staying afloat.  With everything that was going on...the lack of sleep, little appetite, the crying...all of it, the boy just wanted a break.  He wanted to hibernate for the rest of the winter...he wanted to wake up and realize everything had been a bad dream.  But he had yet to come into that sort of "luck".  Today had been busy enough to keep Elijah more distracted than usual.  And he had gotten out of bed in the first place.  That had to be saying something.

Calix had left the Principia shortly before Elijah was called to the arena.  Wedding planning and all.  Despite how long it had been, Elijah still had a difficult time wrapping his head around the odd couple that was his best friend and his sister.  But there was no denying Calix and Lúth were made for each other.  Even though he had broken his fellow Praetor's jaw the day he found out (though Elijah would always stubbornly insist that it was all circumstantial), the boy thought they were pretty perfect for each other.  They balanced each other out in love the way Calix and Elijah did as the ones running the legion and the small boy couldn't be more excited for the wedding.  It was a tiny bit scary that they were so young, but the boy figured demigods couldn't risk the time.  Besides, he was sort of the baby in the group- at 17, he was around the same age or older than most of the legionnaires, though younger than the majority of his friends.  In years, of course.  Really, Elijah felt like he had already lived a lifetime...especially the past few weeks.  Walking back to the Principia, the son of Discordia tried to distract himself again, thinking about the wedding.  Calix had asked him to be his best man, which Elijah had enthusiastically agreed to, but now the small boy had to properly figure out what the best man did.  A suit wouldn't be necessary, since the boy was assuming he would wear his Praetor formal wear.  Bachelor parties didn't exactly seem like Calix's speed (though Elijah had thought up a few things they could do in place of).  It basically left the speech...Elijah was pretty sure that was his biggest job.  It was also the most daunting, though the boy had already scribbled down a few ideas.

Elijah breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he reached the Principia.  He was ready for the still silence of the main room, and the stack of paperwork he had would be a numbing distraction.  As the boy opened the heavy door (he hadn't bothered to lock it...he hadn't intended to be at the arena long and he hadn't been anyway), Elijah didn't get very far in before noticing there was someone in there.  Someone who wasn't Calix...a very tall girl who was definitely a few years older than the boy.  He vaguely recognized her...perhaps she had been a friend of Calix's at the old Camp Jupiter?  That probably wasn't a good thing, since most of them hated the boy (well, a few, anyway).  Though Elijah had to admit he wished he had a few extra inches.  This girl probably had close to a foot on him...tall people often made the boy a bit twitchy and self-conscious.  "Can I help you?" Elijah called to the girl, unable to keep the slight weariness out of his voice.  "Sorry, I had just run out to...well, do stuff.  But now I'm back.  And if you're looking for Calix, I'm pretty sure he's doing some wedding planning."

Mia jumped at the voice, startled. Her eyes grew to the size of diner plates as she realized that the short, almost adorable, boy (and there really wasn’t any other adjective that could describe him accurately) was the other Praetor: Elijah Emmanual. She didn’t know much about him, despite what she had picked up from other legionnaires. The Praetor was said to have an incredibly short temper; apparently he had punched Calix over something. Then there were rumors that the guy was gay – not that Mia really cared about a person’s sexuality – and that he was dating the Centurion for First – again, she didn’t really care. The Greek had heard talk about how good Emmanual was at being Praetor: some claimed that Calix brought balance, others claimed that he, Emmanual, did everything in the Legion and that Calix was holding him and the Legion back, then there was an entire separate group that claimed that Emmanual was the one holding Calix and the Legion back and that he couldn’t lead for anything.

Now Mia generally didn’t believe gossip. After all, she had spread her fair share of it back in California and knew how wild and crazy it would get. There was, however, a part of her that wanted to believe what other said about the Praetor before her. Yes, most of it was unfounded, and yes her great-grandmother would be turning in her grave if she actually admitted to this aloud (the woman probably was anyway, knowing that insane empathy gift of hers), but she had to admit that she, Mia Ioannou, was wary of the boy before her. She didn’t like violent people as a rule (even though she herself could and would be quite violent should someone threaten her family or home ever again), and the son of Discordia gave off an aura that made the Greek want to tuck her tail between her legs and run.

But still, Mia stood there, staring at the small boy, curiosity overwhelming her better judgment. ’Curiosity killed the cat…’ she thought; it eerily sounded like her grandmother’s voice, but she pushed that bit aside. Gods knew she had heard that plenty of times from the old woman growing up.

She gave the boy a kind smile and nodded in acknowledgment. “Thank you, sir,” she said, giving him a semi-formal salute. “I apologize for intruding, Praetor, sir.” It felt strange for the Greek to use such formal language; she prided herself on being one of the most relaxed legionnaires in terms of speech. It felt awkward on her tongue. “I’ll, uh, just go look for Calix then,” she said after a small stretch of silence. She gave him another smile, this one much tenser, and headed for the door.

The woman paused though, when she noticed his eyes. They were blue, a bright blue, in fact. Mia was struck at their color; they were only a shade or two lighter than the crystal blue waters of the Aegean that she and her cousins would play in as children. She stared into those bright eyes, swarmed with memories of happiness and childhood and pure bliss for what seemed like forever. It came to an end though, when she realized that at some point she had slumped over to get a closer look. “Um…” she finally spoke, standing straight. “I’m sorry if this is weird, but um,” she paused here, taking a deep breath. “Your eyes are absolutely stunning. And your eye make-up really brings the color out, and it is so much better than anything that I could ever hope to achieve, and that’s on a good day.” Mia laughed softly at this, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. “Thought I’d mention it.”

When facing the girl, Elijah was pretty sure he had seen her around before.  Yes, probably a friend of Calix's.  And if his memory served him properly, she was in the First Cohort.  That meant there was a good chance they had crossed paths when the boy had gone to bother his boyfriend.  Hopefully that wasn't the issue...the last thing Elijah needed was a legionnaire complaining about their Centurion who was the Praetor's boyfriend.  It was the boy's job to be impartial, but that didn't mean it was easy in some cases.  But the girl didn't look like she was there with an issue.  She looked pretty surprised when the small boy revealed himself...either way, the son of Discordia hoped this was going to be easy to deal with.  With a slight twitch, the boy felt like he was about to start radiating...the heavy blanket of chaos that fell over him before starting to roll outwards.  "No," Elijah scolded himself and the chaos.  "Prohibere eam! Sed non est in tempore..." he mumbled in Latin, trying to convince himself that radiating was a really bad idea.  The boy was getting better at controlling his radiating, but he still felt that using verbal cues helped keep it at bay.  At least in times like this, where there wasn't exactly a cause for the radiating...sometimes it just helped to verbally make it known.  Not that the chaos could hear him or something.  It was all in his head.

The girl, whom Elijah still couldn't quite place (or have the energy to quite place), was very tall.  Really, the boy had no idea with tall people.  Jack was probably about a foot taller than the boy.  This girl seemed to be hovering around the same height.  The look on her face threw Elijah off a little.  She sort of seemed like the type to start on about how adorable the boy was.  That had happened to him once when he needed extra tutoring for his Bar Mitzvah.  One of the older girls at the synagogue thought the pale, sullen thirteen year old was cute and was just short of pinching his cheeks before he kicked her shin and she fell over.  A few months later, the boy had broken his first bone- punching a classmate in the face after insulting Elijah's chanting voice.  Elijah had broken the guy's nose before running off and trashing the bathroom.  They were asked to leave the synagogue as soon as the Sabbath had ended.  Why was the boy thinking about all this?  Sometimes the thoughts about his past in the mortal world came out of nowhere.  Especially when his whole mindset was sort of empty.  Focusing back on the girl, the small boy frowned slightly.  He really hoped she hadn't spoken while his thoughts had been elsewhere.  That was something the boy hated more than just about anything...being completely lost in thought when someone was speaking.

But then she spoke, and it was pretty apparent she hadn't spoken already.  Staring blankly at the girl for a moment, Elijah frowned slightly.  "Oh, no, it's..." as much as the boy hated the formality of 'sir' and 'Praetor', he knew it was sort of a necessary thing, especially with someone he didn't know.  Still, the boy figured he had to keep up some of that if he wanted to be taken seriously at the right times.  Hanging his head slightly, the small boy wasn't even sure what to do with any of this.  "Seriously, if Calix isn't here, he definitely has a good reason to be so.  And if it's with or because of my sister, I'd appreciate you not going to find them because Lúth would kill me," there weren't a lot of people that Elijah was afraid of, but his sister was definitely one.  Not that he'd ever tell her (and woe betide anyone who reported that back), but their relationship was messed up enough to begin with.  Sure, the boy loved his sister, and knew that she loved him in her own way, but the older girl was scary.  It still seemed odd the way that whole dynamic worked.

Elijah was about to turn when he noticed the girl was staring at him...quite specifically his eyes.  The boy knew he had very nice eyes and did his eye makeup well, but he wasn't really in the mood for any of that.  Especially as the tall girl bent forward, looking deeply in them.  The small boy's eyebrow shot up as he awkwardly tried to look away.  Seriously, people didn't do this sort of thing...or they shouldn't, because it was awkward and kind of scary.  Elijah didn't want anyone but Jack staring into his eyes like that.  "Uh...right, okay...thank you for the compliment and the...uh...the compliments..." the son of Discordia was bad at this sort of thing.  Most compliments that came his way were from people he loved and cared about.  Not random people (though it was obvious she was familiar with Calix), but it seemed a little odd for something like that.  It was nice and all, but Elijah still felt awkward about something that personal.  His eyes and his carefully done makeup were very personal things for Elijah, so he just wasn't sure how to really respond.

"So..." Elijah frowned slightly as the girl straightened up.  "Was that all a statement about my height or about my eyes?" bad responses and general confusion.  The thing was that the small boy just didn't get how these things were supposed to go.  "I mean...thank you, but..." with an internal sigh, the boy realized he didn't even know this legionnaire's name.  He probably had at some point, since he tried really hard to learn legionnaires' names and faces, but it was just one of those days where Elijah was lucky he remembered his own name.  Staring slightly, the small boy tried to put a smile on his face.  Making new friends, especially friends of Calix's, could be a good thing.  Motioning to the chairs on one side of the long table, Elijah moved to the other side, sitting in his usual seat.  "You're certainly welcome to stay.  Just let me know...I can't remember your...your name.  Sorry...it's been one of those days."