The Rebirth

**
Nico didn’t understand why they couldn’t have portaled directly to the door of First Nome instead of portalling about fifty miles from it and having to take a camel.
Sadie had waved away the question, claiming that Egyptian magic was hard and complicated to understand, but really, by the way she determinedly avoided answering it, Nico decided that it meant “I screwed up.”
But, finally, they were there, at the doors, and they were let in, past magnificent paintings and hieroglyph structures, and led to some rooms.
“Okay,” Sadie announced, bossily. “You are taking that one. I am taking this one. See you on the other side.”
Nico stared at her. “What do you mean, on the other side?”
“We’re going for a nap. You’re tired, right? Good. When you fall asleep, because you don’t know where you’re going, I’ll find and catch you and bring you to the right place. You’re in Egyptian territory now, shouldn’t be too hard, now, will it? But, just for an extra boost in Duat’s direction: here- You should drink either this lovely mix or put this one here on your face. Whichever suits your fancy.”
“I should what now?”
“Come on. You’re son of Haiti, correct? Is this not how you get to the land of the dead? Sleep is just practice for the day it all ends, you know. Now, chop chop. Surprisingly, I don’t have time to dawdle all day.”
Stunned, Nico opened his mouth, about to correct her, or make a comment, or tell her how it works in the much normal-er Greek Underworld, when she went in the room, slamming the door hurriedly behind her. He swallowed uneasily. From the woman who set them fifty miles off track and four hours back, he wasn’t feeling too secure about trusting her to ‘catch him and bring him to the right place’.
But, he took the disgusting potion and fluffed his pillow and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He sighed, annoyed. It did make sense to fall asleep and drift down to the Underworld. Why couldn’t he do that?
His thoughts drifted to the boy with the sunshine in his face before falling, falling, falling-

**

Benji was waiting outside of her door.
And he was lovely. His body was elongated, lean, graceful. She could see the catlike qualities- his grace, his lazy posture, the way his fingers were long and awkwardly tapping themselves out against his jeans. His hair curled around his forehead, and as he straightened to greet her, he brushed it up.
Those eyes. Golden hazel. Like a slightly murky, sunlit creek encaptured in two gemstones.
Her observations were getting weird. She dropped her head.
She couldn’t help but remember- “I’ve seen her fight. First time ever fighting, 12 years old. Saved my life.”
Ah. There it was. The slow, creeping red flames. Why couldn’t she control it like she could control her other emotions?
“Hi.” This was awkward. His voice was thick with awkwardness. Elena felt so uncomfortable, and so desperate to make it not uncomfortable, that it was painful.
“Hi,” Elena responded back, a little tiredly. “Do you… fancy anything?”
“Fancy- what?”
“Never mind,” she mumbled. This was getting worse by the second. And her flames were heating up even more- but not in the butterfly, jittery way.
A beat. A slow, agonizing beat.
Elena forced herself to look up at his eyes. Cat eyes.
Without thinking she blurted out, “Bast is your mother?”
He glanced down at her, shifting his feet. “I- how do you know about Egyptian magic and gods?”
“Well. I, er, I dunno much about magic. But Egyptian gods- yes. I have to know all the cultures.”
“Why?” the tenseness in his shoulders was dissolving, a microscopic bit per second. But it was progress. It made the painful burn in her cheeks die down a little, also. “Do your trainers make you?”
“I don’t have trainers,” Elena said quietly. The thought was a little bitter. Here, they had whole families to help you grow strong. In London, she paid four different people huge sums of money a week so she could simply allow herself to stay alive. “I mean, I train with teachers, but no, they don’t make me. It’s just something I have to know. I can’t back out on it.”
“But… I’m sorry, but why?”
“Why do you have to study Egyptian magic?”
“Isn’t that a little obvious?”
“So you can actually use your Egyptian magic, right? To fight against monsters. And other bad things.”
“Um… yes?”
“So,” Elena said, relaxing considerably. The conversation was still sludging along. But it didn’t physically hurt her body to have it. “I don’t have magic. But I still have monsters and other bad things, and I have knowledge. So I need to study that knowledge and use that- all this information in myths about different creatures- in battle instead of magic. Make sense? I’m mortal. I use whatever I have.”
“You keep saying that. That you’re mortal.”
“Is it not true?”
“Well, yeah. But you say it like it’s a bad thing. I’m mortal.”
Elena didn’t answer him, choosing to look at him strangely instead. Says the boy who changed into a cat in battle. She didn’t feel the need to respond to that observation.
He thought back. “Well, I mean, I must have some magic blood. But I have two parents. I’m mortal, mostly. I just can control magic.”
Elena could’ve said a lot of things. A lot of snappy things that would’ve let her angry feelings seep through into her voice, ‘You just can control magic. Wow. You’re right. Never thought of it that way. That really isn’t that special at all’ being one of them.
But instead, what she did somehow manage to ask was “Is Bast not your mom?
“What? No! I just follow in the goddess’s footsteps. Technically, I follow “the path of Bast”. I learn her magic, and fight like her, and just use some version of her godly powers in general.”
Elena thought this over. “Oh.”
And it became silent again, the tension rising up, slowly, higher and higher. Finally, just as Elena decided she should probably end this interaction and go to bed, Benji blurted, “I’m sorry. I came up here to kind of end of all this. Whatever this,” he waved his hands all around himself and gestured jerkily to Elena, “Is. This awkwardness, I mean,” he added hastily, groaning. “Not, like, our relationship… Okay. Um, I’m sorry if I was, like, awkward today, or if I just was distant in general, but I kind of didn’t… know how to act, if that made sense. It’s a little… Bam. It’s a little BAM seeing you again after all these years, and it is a little weird, but it doesn’t have to be bad weird. It can be a sort of good weird, if we make it that way. And, ah, anyways, I just came up so you could know that, and so all of the bad weirdness can go away. So, maybe we can do that? Because if we’re going to go on a quest together- no, you know what? It doesn’t even matter if we’re going to go on a quest together. Even if you weren’t coming along, we should still get to know each other. We should still… Be friends? If you want, I mean. Would you…?” He trailed off.
But Elena got what he was saying. She knew what he was feeling.
And it was so heartachingly, unbelievably sweet.
She broke out into a smile, making the boy in front of her break out into a grin, relieved and goofy. She stated, “Well. Of course. You just had to ask.”
“Okay. Okay, that’s good. So-“
“So, now, I must go,” Elena raised her eyebrows dramatically. “To my room. For bed. And tomorrow, we will go, together, to London. And we will have a marvelous time.”
“Yeah. Yeah!”
Elena started laughing. She had no idea why. She just laughed, and laughed, and couldn’t stop, and it wasn’t like anything was funny, and she could hear Benji’s hesitantly laughing, also, but when she looked up, there wasn’t anything hesitant about the beaming grin.
His curls bounced as he started jogging backwards down the hall. “Elena. Good night.”
She continued to laugh, even as she walked into her ‘room’ and became face-to-face with a furious Lily, who’d been waiting impatiently for this exact moment to arrive, so she could launch into the long-winded lecture she’d been cooking up ever since she learned Elena had went into battle.
***

Notes

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My NaNoWriMo book is sucking so far

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I have two essays due

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I still haven't finished either of them

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:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( I think around 7, 8 more chapters to go? Counting down guys.