002; video

[vanto]

[The room behind Eli is decorated with a few Christmas lights and ornaments: a candy cane or two, some crystal stars, mistletoe. It's minimalistic but adequately festive for the Imperial household; at the edge of the room is a box and wrappings — this room has clearly just been decorated.

Eli runs a hand through his hair, nervous but content. There is a smear of red lipstick on his cheek that he has been trying to wipe off for forty minutes. This is his life now.]

I can't remember the last —week and a half? Two weeks?— very well. But I know that I caused some trouble as a, uh, glowing horse. With eight legs.

[Eli looks away from the camera, mouth pressed into a thin line.]

I'm sorry, and if you want me to pay or help fix anything please contact me. I don't know how else to make up for all the garden destruction.

[...]

And how do you fix cravings from being a horse? I walked by a flower shop and the roses looked really appetising.

Comments

[garotted]

If anyone should apologize, it's that jerk-off Woden. [ a beat, then with deceptive mildness: ] The real Sleipnir's my brother.

[vanto]

[Oh, kriff.]

Yeah, he should, but I was running around as. Well. An impostor in a way.

[Eli is awkward.]

Though I wasn't. We weren't. It was real.

[garotted]

I know. You thought you were him. [ but you aren't, she wants to say and doesn't. her siblings have been through enough shit without this kind of crap being done.

and anyway, it's not eli's fault, no matter how angry she is about all of this. ]

It's fine. I'm glad you're back to being you.

[vanto]

[Eli isn't going to push it. Maybe at some other point he can try to explain, it doesn't feel right. No, he wasn't Sleipnir but he had been a Sleipnir, and somewhere, something had shifted and he's not sure he wants to think too much about how he belongs to his creator.

It's irrational.]

It's good to see you as just me. I didn't expect this to happen, I wouldn't have taken Woden's gift if I'd known.