Chapter 16 - Sleepover

As the sun begins to set, and everything had been prepared, Helios and Elina arrive. I make my way down the stairs with Anna as I hear the door being opened so I can welcome them, Adelphos seemingly doing the same as he walks down on the other side of me. As they make their way into the house they begin by greeting our parents. 

"Good evening Duke and Duchess Gabris. Thank you for welcoming us despite it being a sudden visit. I hope we aren't overstepping our boundaries." Helios begins as Elina stands silently by his side and curtsies awkwardly. 

"Nonsense, you're always welcome to visit. We consider you both to be like children of ours." My father refutes kindly while placing a hand on Helios' shoulder. "Should you need anything throughout your stay, make sure to tell someone so they can accommodate for you. Me and the Duchess will be upstairs so you need not to worry about adults prying into your private life." My father jokes to lighten the mood, probably more for Elina's comfort than anything else. At that my father signalled for us to act as hosts, and began to leave with my step mother. "Well then, we will get going now, enjoy your stay." 

We rush down the stairs in poorly hidden excitement. "I hope the journey was okay, come in and sit down." My voice unnecessarily loud from happiness, while I guide them towards the living room. 

From there conversation came easy. It was hard to imagine that these were people I had not known just months prior. Every part of me was telling me that this could not be true. These were people I had known, perhaps before my birth. These two melded with me so well that it wouldn't make sense otherwise. They were a secret part of me written in a language I had yet to come to learn. If time would allow, I would learn more of myself through them and through those around me and then - maybe then I could finally find peace in knowing who I really was. Whether it was Persephone or Layla, whether it's the me I see staring back in the mirror or the me on a screen - perhaps being created and recreated countless times in another dimension - whether I knew what it meant to exist at all. 

Having decided that we were too comfortable sitting around the fireplace, food was brought to where we were sitting. It felt, in every sense of the word, like home. As we sat speaking to one another, I couldn't even remember what we were speaking about. Perhaps everything and nothing all at once. There was nothing of importance to say, nothing that one knew that the other did not, and yet there was never a moment of silence. As though we were afraid of finding an empty space among us, we spoke of pointless things and laughed at every little thing. Bad jokes were somehow incredibly hilarious in the right company. In this space that we occupied, where the heat of the fireplace could still reach, nothing could harm us. 

"I fear what the two of you will be like at your academy. With the stories you've spoken of I'm afraid you might get expelled!" I joke, lightly punching my brother on his shoulder. 

"You're concerned for us? I'm more afraid of what you'll be like once we leave you behind. Who knows what trouble you'll get up to for enjoyment." Adelphos responds, playfully rubbing his knuckles on my head.

Seeing Elina laughing at me, I turn to her for my next attack. "Do you find pleasure in my pain? Well ... take this!" I yell as I leap towards her and begin tickling her. She begins laughing uncontrollably, squirming beneath me to try and get away but I latched on, unyielding. 

With tears forming in her eyes from the laughter she says - although broken up by her laughs - "you win!" 

At that I finally stop tickling her and instead collapse onto the floor by her seat, tired from trying to stop the squirming Elina from escaping my grasp. 

"You're too mischievous and strong for your own good" Helios tuts with a telling smile, too fond to mistake for anything else. I turn my head to face him, grinning ear to ear. 

Like that, the hours passed by until it was time for bed. Nothing noteworthy happened and yet, every emotion that was brimming to the surface, threatening to spill out, was worth remembering. After having bid everyone a good night and getting dressed for bed, I lay beside Elina. She seemed tired, perhaps from the journey, as she struggled to keep open her heavy eyelids. Out of habit from my childhood years, I brush her hair back to leave her forehead exposed, and gently leave a goodnight kiss on it. With that, she settled into a soft sleep as I lay with her on one side and my thoughts on the other. 

I remember someone once telling me "sleeping before someone is extremely intimate. It allows you to show your vulnerable self to them". That kept running through my mind as I looked at Elina. She looked vulnerable, though in some ways, she always did. Elina draws people in, in ways that are indescribable to the sane. She looks like someone who has yet to experience the world and yet has experienced all of it, pure at heart but firm in faith. She is aware of the harsh reality of the world yet dares to believe in justice, in the goodness of people, in unconditional love and support. To me, there is no one quite as brave as someone who dares to believe. When the future is so uncertain and all seems wrong, she is the one constant that will always feel right. 

I suppose you could say that was her role, as the protagonist she was bound to be this unreachable perfect being. Or at least that was how she was depicted. But getting to know her, looking at her right now, I see how she could never be any less than she is. She was perfect in that she wasn't. Somehow her imperfections made her all the more approachable, understandable and - for lack of better words - real. She would always be more than something between pages, too great an existence to reside solely in someone's imagination, too human for fiction. I briefly wished that she would stay this way, pure and hopeful, for as long as she lives, before I began to slowly allow the fatigue to take over me.