Counting Down | Aria/Arsen

Aria wandered the clock tower courtyard, able to hear the great clock in the tower itself.

"'Unfortunately,'" the blonde quoted softly, tone hushed and melancholy, "'the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.*'"

She closed her eyes against the gentle breeze that blew through the courtyard, causing her skirt to brush against her bare legs as it stroked a stray strand of hair from her face. Aria was pale; too pale, if one truly scrutinized her. She was only just avoiding being too thin, as well, though most would attribute that to her naturally petite size.

The girl was fading, though; she had already determined this, counting down the moments of her life in time with the great clock, tick, tick, tick...

Only the clock would continue. Aria was certain that she would not.


*Haruki Murakami

It was an extremely windy day as Arsen walked across the courtyard. Most would pull up their collars and snuggle inside their coats but he had no need. He didn't feel the cold like everyone else. He just felt the annoying wind that blew out his jacket and messed up his hair.

He moved almost absentmindedly. His feet doing the walking and his mind wondering in space. Just as he rounded the corner to enter the clock tower courtyard he spotted someone stood there. "Don'... Oh hey Aria. What are you doing out here?" He asked moving over to her.

Mismatched eyes opened, a smile which was reminiscent of those before Aria's temporary memory suppression lighting up the girl's face. Arsen!

Yet, the delighted greeting did not cross her lips. She might have recovered the memories Djinn had tried to keep from her, but much had still changed. Including her understanding and perception of those few brief months.

"Hello," Aria greeted warmly, though much more sedately. "I'm just enjoying the fresh air. It's perfect. Neither hot, nor too cold. It makes you feel alive, doesn't it?"

He watched her carefully. Now she had changed she seemed to be a lot harder to read. "Umm i guess so." He shrugged. "I guess the wind doesn't feel the same when you can't feel its temperature." He said moving to lean against the pillar.

Aria gave him a small grin. "Poor Arsen," she teased lightly. Her gaze focused intently on him a long moment, taking in his features, as though memorizing them.

"The pretty eyes," Aria said softly. "I remember, now, you know. Do you know how disappointed I was when I found out my eyes weren't like yours?" The blonde put on a faint pout, though amusement shone in her eyes. "I have always liked your eyes."

"Ha. Ha." He said giving her a sarcastic smile. He tilted his head to the side slightly and watched as she looked at him. He never did understand how she could do that. Most people took a seconds glance and then looked away or waited until he wasn't looking to look a little longer. But she was different, she always had been.

He smiled. "I know i remember that day clearly. You thought you were the freak." He laughed shoving his hands into his pockets. "Pretty clear now that it's me that doesn't fit in with everyone else." He smiled. "My eyes have gotten me in more trouble that anything else. Satan eyes people called them." He said rolling his eyes. "You're lucky you were made normal. At least then you can lead a normal life without having to watch you back."

Aria smiled softly, stepping closer and lightly taking one of Arsen's hands. "I never wanted to fit in with everyone else," she told him simply. "Only with you." She released his hand again, seconds after taking it. He didn't like to be touched, especially by her. She hadn't forgotten.

The blonde gave a soft laugh that was far happier sounding than it actually was. "A normal life. How ordinary."

How very far out of reach...

He watchhed her move towards him and finally came to rest his eyes on their hands. He'd never allowed anyone to touch him, but now he found both Karma and Aria touching him without hesitation and he did nothing. "You did fit in with me. We were both made by some crack pot demon that couldn't give a shit about us." He said leaving his hand where she had left it for a second before letting it drop.

"Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what everyone wants? A normal life?" He asked placing his hand back in his pockets. "What happened with you Aria? One minute you were always there and the next... you were avoiding me?" He asked. This had been bothering him for a while and he needed to know why.

The blonde shook her head in contradiction. "I didn't. No matter how hard I tried, I was always just a bother. I always made you angry." She did smile at the 'crack pot demon' bit, though. She liked that one.

I'd take any life at all, Aria thought sadly.

Her eyes grew anguished. "You disappeared, first!" she protested, immediately wishing to take back the words. It wasn't his fault, of course. It couldn't have been. "I didn't mean to, I just... I couldn't remember you. Your father, when he put the false memories in my mind so it would appear I'd recovered from my 'amnesia', he suppressed my memories of you, and then he told me to stay away from you. And I tried, at first - he terrifies me. He can call me to him no matter where I am. I didn't want to anger him!" The girl rubbed unconsciously at the burned hand prints under the sleeves of her blouse.

"When you didn't want m-" Aria broke off, quickly rewording. "When Djinn took over my 'care', he knew I'd still be loyal to you. I don't know, I guess he thought if I didn't remember you, I would be more compliant. He's an original demon - I don't pretend to understand him. I don't dare try.

"In the end, I remembered, anyway." She sighed, her gaze focusing sadly on his. "Do you know so little about me that you would really believe I'd just avoid you without being forced? Of course I wouldn't, Arsen. You were my first love."

He smirked. "I don't know if you've noticed but im always angry. It comes with the demon package im afraid. I just get annoyed so easily." He shrugged. "Im getting better though... kinda."

"I was kidnapped and put in a coma! How was i supposed to know you'd suddenly turn cold on me?" He said looking up to the bird on the roof opposite. "Woah wait what? He wiped your memories? Why would he do that?" He asked. Was the man trying to isolate him from the world or what? It certainly seemed like it. First Karma and now Aria too?

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that why he burned you? Because you were with me that night at spin the bottle?" He asked his anger rising. He'd had enough of his father and his schemes. Why make him look after someone and then make them avoid you? "So you think he did it because he was scared you'd chose me instead of him?" He asked. It did make sense. Djinn was thinking about over throwing his father so of course he was going to be paranoid about Arsen doing the same.

He looked away before answering. He wasn't usually the truthful kind of person unless it was used to hurt someone else of gain something for himself. "Everyone leaves eventually Aria. It's always just a matter of time." He said before looking up at her. "Love?"

She gave a wry little smile. "Being angry and being angry because I did some that annoyed you are two different things," she pointed out.

"You were in a coma?" Aria's eyes went wide, brow puckering in concern as she stepped closer to him. "What happened? Are you alright?"

The girl shrugged helplessly, her fingers convulsing over the burn scars on her arms at his question. She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. At first, I thought maybe it was, but he said... he said that I could ask my friend why I was being treated that way, and that it was a message from someone called Ethon. I kind of... blocked some of that out, I think.

"Your father isn't that big on sharing," Aria stated dryly. "And if he didn't want me to be loyal to you, he shouldn't have put me in your care to begin with."

Her mismatched eyes studied him a long moment. "You so quickly forget all the times I didn't," she said quietly. "I was behaving entirely out of character, and you didn't think to go after me or confront me. If you had, you would've known that my memories had been tampered with..."

Aria diverted her gaze, studying her hands as she twined the fingers together idly. The blonde gave a sad laugh.

"What? You didn't think your puppy could love you, Arsen?" she asked, tone light even though she couldn't bring herself to look at him. "I was made for you. Do you how special that made me feel? My whole existence revolved around you. Arsen, Arsen, Arsen - all day, every day. Even when I couldn't do anything right, I still had hope that it could be fixed, that some day, I wouldn't be a bother anymore and you'd want me around. Because in the entire world, only Aria was made for Arsen."

She frowned, brow puckering. Still her eyes remained fixed on her hands. "I might not have known anything about the world or how people interact," Aria murmured, "but I've always been able to feel, Arsen. Happiness. Sadness. Regret. Love..."

He shrugged. "Not in my world. Being angry either way feels the same. You only annoyed me because i was already too angry to care. Im nearly always too annoyed or angry to care!" He explained turning his ring around his finger. "Well i think it was a coma. I know i was out for a few days and woke in a strange house in the middle of nowhere." He explained thinking back to all those demons waiting for him. "I blew up the muggle hide out and it exhausted me. Im fine now though." He added just to make sure she knew.

"Who the hells Ethon?" He asked running his hand through his hair. "The friend obviously being Karma after seeing her reaction." He said through gritted teeth. He couldn't believe his father was getting in the way with Karma too. She was his and his alone! No one was taking her away from him. "Have the burn marks gone?" He asked nodding at her arms.

"My father isn't a lot of things. Including smart. He gave you to me and then stopped you from going near me but he under estimated love. It always wins in the end. He's an idiot thinking you'd leave me and side with him. He's just stupid. You would have thought he'd grown a brain cell or two over the billion years he's been around." He said shaking his head. He was just glad he hadn't inherited his fathers brains.

He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. "I forget a lot of things. I get too caught up in my emotions and not trying to blow up the school that i forget to look at whats happening around me. I'm sorry, i should have realised. I just presumed you'd done as i asked at first. But you always came back to me before." He said opening his eyes to look at her. "Can you forgive me for not noticing?" He asked.

He shrugged. "I never thought about it. I saw you as a person of course but i never imagined you loving me! I've never imagined anyone loving me. I've always been the devils spawn to everyone else, but not you. You were the first to really see me. The arrogant, stuck up, half demon. Wow i really do act like the devils spawn." He said as if just realising this was the case.

He frowned. "Don't say that. I don't deserve someone to be made for me. You're more innocent that i have ever been. I could never destroy a soul as pure as your own. You were made from fire, air and dirt and yet, you had the purest soul i had ever seen. It wasn't meant to be, it can't have been." He said looking up into her eyes. "You understand that right? Please tell me you understand." He said placing a hand on her cheek as he looked into her mixed eyes. He needed her to understand.

"I know that now. I just wish you had told me sooner."

Aria gave him a dubious glance, then shook her head. She didn't know who Ethon was, nor would she believe Karma had anything to do with him. Karma was her sister; she always blamed herself when something happened to her, even though there was no way it could have been her fault.

"Oh," Aria murmured softly, pulling her hands away from her arms. "They haven't. They've faded a bit, but I don't think they'll ever go away. Not entirely. I've gotten used to them, though." She gave a small shrug.

"Stupid... or maybe he simply didn't care," the girl murmured. "I don't think he can feel love, though. It's beyond his comprehension. Djinn will never be human enough to feel it."

Aria gave him a warm smile. "I forgive you," she stated simply.

"Nonetheless, it's true. Djinn made me for you. Just because I was never more than your burden, it doesn't change that fact." Aria put her hand over his, leaning her cheek into his palm. "'Isn't' and 'can't' are not the same. I'm not as fragile as you think I am, nor am I a child," she said softly.

Pulling his hand away from her cheek and holding it in hers, Aria rose up on her toes and kissed him; a simple, chaste brushing of lips against lips. She pulled back again. "I understand," Aria told him, "but you also need to understand that I could have loved you just as well, and I would have done my entire life." She drew away entirely, turning so she faced the rest of the courtyard.

"Things have changed, now, though. You have Karma, and I have Rhys." The blonde glanced back at him over her shoulder, a gentle smile gracing her features.

"So, take this as goodbye, Arsen," she said, "a goodbye to my first love."

Goodbye, Arsen...

He nodded. Of course they hadn't gone away. He knew they wouldn't, it was his father that did them after all. When he gave someone a warning he wanted them to remember that warning for the rest of their lives. "I suposed that makes sense. I just like to think of him as stupid though, it makes me feel better..." He smirked. "To know my father, even after all these centuries he's been alive is more stupid than i am."

"Thank you." He smiled softly. It did now feel a little better now he'd heard her say those words. Something had been bothering him for months but he just couldn't work out what. Now he knew. "I never once thought of you as a child Aria." He said only now realising he hadn't. She had always been the same age as him in his eyes and nothing less. To him, he'd never seen her being made, she was just a normal human being.

She kissed him!? Why was she doing this? He thought as he just stood there and looked at her. He still wasn't sure what she'd just done. "Wait!" He said finally snapping out of his frozen state. "Where are you going?" He asked. "You're not leaving are you?"

Aria laughed softly. "I'm not going anywhere just this moment," she replied. "I'm not saying good bye to you because I'm leaving, now. I'm saying good bye to you as the one I love.

"Even if I did leave, where would I go? There is nowhere for me to go, Arsen." She wouldn't go anywhere, when all was said and done; she'd simply cease to be. The girl knew this, even accepted it, for the most part.