I wrote this a while back, maybe early this year or late last year but only finished it recently because I needed a story to dedicate to my country. Usually I dedicate to friends, family and readers but my country is in turmoil at the moment and so am I. So this is to JamRock and all within her.
Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening
By Robert Frost
…The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Song: Unconditional Love- JahCure
I disclaim all ownership of everything in this but the cute kid named Ariciah and the plot of sorts. All else belongs to Colfer
Summary: His mind was too orderly, too logical and brilliant for him to believe in premonitions. But this dream was too vivid, too close to reality for it to be anything but. Dream or premonition, it was beautiful and a part of him wished it real.
Title: Premonition
By AleauxVander B.D
His weariness ran bone deep yet he was still awake after midnight.
Surprisingly, he didn't feel sleepy. His body wasn't craving sleep, it was craving a distant and foreign concept he had never experienced.
Rest.
Both his mind and body wanted to be at rest. To, for once, lie still, unbothered, not in a meditative trance to conjure up every bit of his intellectual capabilities but to sleep, actually, with his body lucid and limp and his mind calm. But at the back of his mind, while his brain compartmentalized his thoughts, activities and his lack of sleep, he understood and appreciated that his mind and body would only be at peace when they were a unit and that was when he was dead. Yes, when he was dead, his whirlwind mind would rest and his body would follow suit.
His brain was shifting gears like a vehicle, one portion dedicated to one task and moving from one thing to another.
One part of him noted with surprisingly clarity that he could surpass sleeping tonight or this morning, if one thought of it that way, he would still be mostly 82% functional later on in the day.
The other part was typing furiously, sorting through algorithm after algorithm, keeping up with company stocks, reorganizing his schedule for the morning to incorporate a meeting with his assistant, emailing Butler a reminder that Juliet would be flying in with her Fiancé whether he approved of him or no, checking his brothers' progress across the internet in creating a name for themselves, a name that didn't include pilfering from others but did include a mind-blowing amount of funds.
Another less preoccupied part of his brain realized that someone was calling his name and it was a voice that he had, somehow, needed to hear
"Still awake, Artemis?" Holly asked. He realized then that he had stopped typing unconsciously when the conference call opened up on his laptop. Her backdrop wasn't as dark as his, but was bathed in a pale, yellow green light. She was in her bedroom, still in uniform and had, apparently, just returned home.
He blinked tired eyes and gave a small smile
"I should say the same to you as well, Major." He said "Late shift?"
She threw something out of the periphery of the camera and it landed lightly on what he would assume was her bed.
"Self inflicted late shift, you mean." She corrected "they really did mean it was a desk job."
"The commander never lies." Artemis said amicably. Her eyebrows shot up incredulously and he amended his statement "the commander rarely lies without valid reason."
"Really?" she perched her elbow on her table and dropped her jaw in her hand "he seems to do a lot of lying for me when I visit you."
His tired body resisted his laugh but it came out quietly and he shook his head
"That you see is an issue of national security."
"Uhhum…"
"It is up to the Commander to keep me on the straight and narrow."
"So you say." She said quietly
"So I know." He shrugged "nevertheless, you should rest, Holly. Missing sleep isn't healthy."
She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest and stared him down accusingly
"That's rich coming from you, Artemis." She countered "have you noticed those bruises under your eyes?"
He had hoped that in the terrible lighting she would not have been able to see his fatigue but then again, she knew him better than others did.
"Be that as it may—"
She waved for silence then asked seriously
"When was the last time you slept, Artemis?"
He pursed his lips momentarily and waved offhandedly
"On the flight to Prague yesterday morning or there about." He offered
"For more than an hour?"
"It is neither the time nor the place giving me the problem. It is the quality of my sleep." He looked her in the eyes and was reminded that the more he prolonged this conversation, the more sleep deprived she would become. "I sleep, in essence, but I don't rest."
"Have you tried sleeping aids?"
He gave a non-committal shrug
"I've written a few prescriptions for some more effective ones without the dire side-effects but they still muddle my mind too intensely for my suiting." He said shuffling papers around on his desk, fighting sleep, fighting his exhaustion and silently fighting her.
"You should take what you can get, Artemis. Sleep," she suggested "even if you don't rest well, sleep."
He shook his head stubbornly
"While that would be preferential, I must have this finished by dawn."
"Will you try to get some rest before then?" she asked
"After this is complete." He lied fluidly.
She gave him a disbelieving stare and he met it unflinchingly
"Doesn't it concern you that someone else is more worried about your sleeping patterns than you are?"
His mind was used to his body's on and off shifting sleeping schedule and he had put it to the back of his mind. In essence, when he lost sleep he didn't think twice about it but yes, he was aware both his parents and Butler were concerned about his trouble sleeping. However diplomatic was Holly's approach to his family's concern, the vague and understated word 'concern' wasn't the one he had in mind. It was, frankly, irritating. He was old enough to take care of his own health.
"I am fine." He answered, realizing it became his mantra to placate his mother and soon to mollify Holy's instinct to worry about him however much she denied it.
She snorted at his words, looking annoyed and tired
"What more can you do at this hour?" she reasoned "sleep a bit, wake up later if necessary."
He was silent, typing away at his work while she looked on in disapproval. He was an adult, she told herself, could take care of himself but when he mistreated his body he worried her. A stretch of silence led him to finally look in her section of the computer screen once more and he sighed in defeat
"You are determined to get me to bed." He noted
"Get your mind out of the gutter, mud man."
He raised his hands in defeat
"I meant that only in the context of this conversation. I am too tired to connote a sexual meaning to anything I say."
Believing him, she looked relieved as he stood, unbuttoning his cuffs and moved around his bedroom
"You'll sleep." It wasn't a question, more a statement of fact that left him wondering just what she would do if he didn't comply. But it was never smart to anger a trigger happy woman.
"Yes." Once again, his life was controlled by a female power but he couldn't bring himself to dislike it even remotely.
"Your work will be there later, Fowl." She reasoned, taking him out of his musing "but you mud men are so fragile there is no guarantee you will be."
He gave a tired laugh, wondering if Butler put her up to this. A personal watch guard he knew Artemis couldn't and wouldn't resist. Not for long, anyways.
"Your concern is touching." He said. Deep within the karst landscape of his mind, he had a small childish hope that her concern for him was born of something more than just platonic friendship. He smiled to himself with his back to the laptop and began to undress. Life would never bore him, he assumed, just always disappoint him.
She made no reply, but left her computer for a moment in which he changed and sat on the edge of his bed not far off.
She returned, lighter looking without her uniform and more pensive.
"Good night." She said
"Morning, actually." He amended
"Don't split hairs." She chided, then "Sleep, Artemis." She said with more affection than she was aware "I'll be here when you wake up."
He wasn't sure why her words struck a chord within him but it did. They weren't overly sentimental; only her stating that she would, if all went well, be there when he rose. But for reasons his tired brain weren't willing to momentarily decipher, it calmed him.
He was asleep before the video conference was terminated.
The sound of his 30 digit encrypted binary password seamlessly and easily being broken was what woke him first. There was little sound, nothing but small, quick and precise key tones and then the sound within their room of the central lock on the door, the bathroom door, and windows unlock.
Artemis lifted his head and looked towards the door before the body next to him moved
"What's the matter?" Holly asked
He didn't answer because the door eased open and out in the hall there was one of the chairs from the dining hall against the wall. Piled on top of the chair were 4 large encyclopaedia and on the tip toes of her bare feet Ariciah Fowl stood.
The toddler sat on the books then awkwardly slid out of the chair. Her morning dress was already crumpled, either by the struggle the nurses had to dress her or her own havoc wrecking across the house. But the child didn't care. She took up the large book she had on the floor and literally had to drag it into the bedroom.
"Your daughter's awake." Artemis said and buried his head in his pillow to return to the comforts of his sleep induced haze
"I assure you, you were instrumental in her making. She's your child, too, if I'm not mistaken."
With such dark hair and blindingly intense blue eyes, the child had to be his and no one else. The only thing their daughter seemed to take up from her mother was her attitude.
Ariciah neither needed nor wanted their help. She was quiet about it, pulling the wooden steps that were slightly heavier than her from under their bed and climbing up, with much struggle, into their arms.
Her mother's arms lifted her easily and settled her in the centre of the caccoon of sheets and quilts and knowing she had her parent's attention, smiled her dimpled smile as she dragged her huge book over her father's limp body.
Artemis groaned in pain when she book slid off his head unto his shoulder then over his fingers into his 2 year old's lap.
"I think you killed your father, Ares." Holly said to the child.
Ariciah looked in her father's direction. He hadn't moved since she climbed up and shrugged baby shoulders, patting his head slightly
"C'est la vie." She said fluently then opened her favourite dictionary. The cover slapped Artemis in the face
"I am being abused." He said to his wife. Holly shrugged
"You heard the girl." she said, pointing out words over Ariciah's shoulder " C'est la vie."
Knowing well that her father was awake, the brilliant child leaned down and kissed his cheek wetly.
His hands caught her small body and dragged her out of Holly's lap into his embrace and began to tickle her. She squealed, writhing in his hands in a bid to escape.
"You spend too much time with your mother." He said affectionately smoothing back her hair. The morning dress was now ruined he noted; wrinkled beyond repair "how long did it take you to crack the code?" Artemis asked. Over Ariciah's head, Holly threw him a smile
She looked pensive, her small finger at her chin and she looked towards the heaven
"4 minutes 32 seconds." She recalled
"An improvement." He noted with a smile. Which meant he would pay Butler his due. The retired guard would be more than smug when he heard.
Holly was relaxed, inclined against the pillows, sleep quickly draining from her figure when Ariciah climbed back into her lap
"As a mother, I should be concerned that you're teaching our child to break security codes." She shrugged pinching her nose "you are your father's child."
"A father who has many meetings planned within a short time today." He said, starting to rise
"Meetings that will have to be put off." Holly cut through. Ariciah was a babbling brook of baby talk, throwing in words she knew but had no idea of their meaning. Holly loosened her hold on her as she slipped off the bed "I got a call from the commander. I need to be at Police Plaza by 11."
Artemis ran his weary hands over his face. She had postponed her day the last time he needed time doing business. In all fairness it was his time to do so but his day….
At his feet, Ariciah had taken his bedside shoes and was doing a good job in tripping herself in them every step she took. She was his daughter; their child. One who needed constant supervision. Every tumble she made, bruised her skin, and within seconds, blue sparks would heal them. They worried endlessly when she was with the nanny or other workers in the house and opted most times to leave her with Butler. Ariciah was too young to realize the secret she held and though she would never intentionally hurt herself to reveal it, she was still a child and children fell, bruised and hurt themselves regularly.
And that was all the convincing he needed to stay with her today.
"You'll stay with her?" A statement, not a request
"As you wish, my lady." He said. She kissed him on his cheek then left to get ready.
Ariciah fell again in his shoes, giggling hysterically each time and from within the bathroom, her mother's all seeing eye extended
"Ares, leave your father's shoes alone."
He reached down to pull her into his arms and she hugged him fiercely, kissing his cheek noisily.
"I love you daddy."
"And you are my life." He kissed her nose, smiled when she wrinkled it and deposited her on the bed
"What shall we do today?" he asked
"Visit Uncle Beck?" she asked hopefully
Artemis could hear Holly's refusal already. While he kept his illegal dealings to a minimum while Ariciah was around and impressionable, Beckett had no qualms about stating his love for robbing the rich and pompous.
"What else?" he asked, climbing next to her. The splitting image of him, she took up her mother's side of the bed and pulled the sheets up to her neck
"Build something!" she said simply
Holly came out of the adjoining bathroom then, dressed in her uniform and ready and heard the two of them
"Build what, Ares?" she asked
"A boat."
Artemis snorted.
"Stop that." Ariciah admonished in perfect parody of her mother "you sound like a pig."
Artemis laughed openly and Holly mocked smile at her daughter
"Cute." She said. Ariciah stood in the bed and bowed with flourish and grace of a 2 year old.
Still weary from his long night and early rise, Artemis was leaning against the pillows, looking pensive
"Something wrong?" she questioned. He kissed her, shook his head and leaned back once more.
"You're tired." She noted. Next to them, Ariciah was settling under the sheets, the warmth and comfort of her parent's bed too good to ignore. The child buried her face in her mother's pillow, the comforters swallowing her tiny body.
Artemis reached across, rubbing soothing circles on her small back. She shuffled around, getting comfortable.
"The plight of parents all around the world." He said jokingly "but yes, I am tired."
"Then sleep." she said simply "quickest and easiest remedy."
He frowned
"If I sleep now, I can't sleep tonight which means the absence of my wife will be more painfully obvious." He reasoned. Ariciah was drifting to sleep, warm and comfortable. He stroked her hair and her breathing evened out.
"Sleep anyways." She suggested "you need to keep up with her."
"We've been doing it for years." He said "I am sure I can manage."
"Soon will be three years." She said with a sad smile. Ares was growing more quickly than she hoped, like mud men did, she admitted to herself. The prospect of outliving Artemis was painful enough but her daughter?
Artemis was on his back with the sheets over his body and Ariciah's when Holly leaned down to kiss them both
"I won't be gone long." She said
"I'll be the judge of that."
"I love you."
Loving them both more than he could express, he smiled
"I love you too.
She smiled
"Sleep the time away, then." she said. He just stared at her, even when she moved away from the bed.
"Sleep, Artemis." a phrase he had heard so many times since he met her it was soothing to know it was true "I'll be here when you wake up."
And so he slept, while she activated her wings and disappeared from view.
When he woke, he thought wearily, she would be there.
He woke slowly and found himself reaching across to move the dictionary Ariciah had left on the bed. His head was turned away, his eyes closed, but his hands travelled across the sheets. In his daze, it took him a longer moment to realize there was no dictionary on the bed and with a slight panic and anxiety neither was Ariciah.
He sat up quickly, looking across the dark sheets to where…
A dream.
There was no dictionary because Ariciah hadn't been in his room. No beautiful dimpled cheek child because he wasn't married to Holly. No ecru coloured sheets and sky blue comforter that Ariciah wrapped in. No large, open bedroom with light streaming in from all windows.
He sunk back unto the bed, suddenly weak.
A child so beautiful and it was a dream. And Holly was his wife, their child's doting mother. The three of them living, somewhat undisturbed by the People, only often enough for Holly to keep her job.
However he tried to shake the grips of the dream, however he tried to push it to the back of his mind, a dimpled smile and dark curly hair appeared.
He sighed heavily, his heart heavy, and wiped his hands over his face
"You're awake…"
He removed his hands to look over at the other end of his large room where Holly exited his bathroom in full LEP gear, her wings sitting in the chair by the window.
He sat up, easing himself against the headboard on unsteady hands
"I hope I didn't wake you." She said honestly and sat on the edge of his bed.
His mind's eye told him that she looked no different in his dream than she did now, only her hair was slightly longer then, just past her shoulder and she looked tired.
He shook his head, to dispel his thoughts
"No, you didn't." he answered "I doubt I could sleep any longer."
She smiled brilliantly then, patting his foot under the covers and stood
"Good. Get dressed. We have work to do." She saw a slightly confused look on his face, one that didn't bode well with her. When was Artemis Fowl ever confused?
"What?" she asked when he just looked at her "didn't expect me here so soon?"
"I didn't expect you here at all." He said honestly
"I thought I told you I'd be here when you wake up." She said looking over her shoulder. From a bag next to her wings, she took out a small peripheral device and threw it on the bed. "That's your debriefing."
He didn't even move to take it up
"You did," he began "regardless, I had assumed—"
"That I wasn't going to come here?" she asked "even if we didn't have hunting to do now, I would have come."
He went silent, his mind moving and she saw he was thinking.
"Stop over thinking things, Artemis." She accused "do you doubt me?"
He blinked at the question. Doubt her? When had he ever?
"No." he said quietly
"That's good to know." She said "Now up, mud man. We have miles to go before we sleep and time waits on no one. Like it or not, I'll be around for a long while."
What she said circled in his mind as he got out of bed. He didn't doubt that she would be around for a while. She made it her duty to remind him she would outlive him by decades in the least. But now, he had an inkling that she would indeed be around for years to come but maybe, just maybe, circumstances would change.
"Have you ever heard the name Ariciah before?" he asked absentmindedly
She gave a thoughtful glance in his direction
"Yes." She smiled at him, giving him an odd look "My mother's middle name was Ariciah and I fell in love with it. Her father called her Ares."
"Why?" she asked seconds later
In time, he would tell her of what he dreamt, of a premonition he believed he had experienced.
"Nothing." He stated "it's a beautiful name."
Owari
I also fell in love with the name Ariciah. Believe it or not, I didnt know it was a real name until I looked it up. It is said to be greek, meaning "Princess of Athens". I'm not certain how credible this is but, what the heck, its a pretty name.
Yes, it isn't perfect. I am a bit too concerned and anxious about my country's state at the moment and this was a good distraction, So...Forgive me for how sloppily this was done.
I would however like to thank those who have reviewed for my previous stories. From your comments I am trying to improve. Thank you.
Reviews fuel my passion for writing. Tell me what you think.