A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Real life seems to like throwing curve balls at me in quick succession. This chapter gives a little of Elsie's backstory and sets up more of the rest of the story. It also finally takes us to Downton Abbey.
Maeve Hughes stared down at the tiny bundle in her arms, the bright blue eyes shining up at her with more clarity that a baby only moments old should have, told her all about the daughter she'd struggled the day and most of the night to bring into the world.
"Hello, Elsie Mae. You're going to be a challenge…" she paused, seeing more of the babe's future, eyes widening as she saw an event that had yet to happen. "Oh my darling, Lass," she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Maeve knew that her baby would grow into a fine woman, made even more so because she was one of the rare ones – an Orá. She would live a long life but suffer greatly as she watched her family dying one by one, leaving Elsie Mae as the lone survivor of the Hughes bloodline. The thought of her child outliving her whole family made Maeve want to weep for the loneliness, but there was something else, someone else tied to the baby whimpering and nuzzling against her.
"Shh, Lassie," she soothed as she settled her daughter to her breast, laughing softly at the tiny hand grasping her nightdress. "No need to hold me hostage, Elsie Mae. I'll not be taking your meal away from you."
Watching her bairn nurse, Maeve knew that the years ahead would be difficult for them all. The child in her arms had inherited all of the Hughes powers, that had been the first thing her far sight had seen when Elsie had been placed against her chest after she'd been born.
No one Hughes woman had possessed all of the powers for hundreds of years. Even now she could feel the power pulsing through her child's veins.
This was going to be one bumpy ride.
Elsie rolled over in her sleep, her eyes moving rapidly under their lids as her mind took her back in time and let her see the day she was born. She'd never had this happen before, and she wasn't sure why it was happening now.
Sitting up, she blinked against the blinding light of the sun shining in through the window.
What was going on?
What was her mind trying to tell her?
CnE
Richard Carlisle snarled as he slapped down his newspaper. He hated waiting about and living in this backwards time.
Who the hell was he kidding?
He hated being trapped in this ridiculously small, fragile body. He rolled his eyes when he thought of how many times he'd had to go forward in time to have this body repaired due to its inability to sustain him without damage.
"Damned Time and her desire for the moon." He rolled his eyes. "Or rather the man in the moon." He snarled and felt himself grow ill. He'd never understood Time, or X'ronos', as she was known here, infatuation with Máni. He knew their names as their original forms, but he had as of yet to discover just who they were here on this ridiculous planet.
He'd thought it would be easy to find them when he'd finally realized that X'ronos had followed the banished Máni into human form and had came down himself to find them.
That had been over five centuries ago and he still was no closer to finding them than he had been the day he was born.
"Born," he huffed. "Bah." What a horrible experience that had been, and unlike the two he sought, this body he'd been born into wasn't an immortal one. Only his knowledge of the medical advancements of the far off future had kept him alive as long as he had been and looking as good as he could in this ridiculous flesh.
The only thing he'd found that he enjoyed was the many women that seemed to fall at his feet. Being a rich man attracted all sorts, and as the supreme Sól, he took on the best of those that flocked to him.
Mary Crawley being one of the more challenging and exciting ones he'd had in decades. And what luck that she was involved with the death of a Turkish diplomat, the son of one of the Turkish Sultan's ministers. It was stuff of scandal for the family and the perfect ammunition to get him what he wanted from the snobbish young woman.
Of course he hadn't planned on her still harboring feelings for her cousin. He snarled his nose. That would never do. He'd made sure to send a little bit of stuff into Matthew Crawley's path to distract him and it had worked until she'd been drawn into Mary's web. He knew about the kiss she and Matthew had shared and that the young Miss Swire had caught them. Of course, she was now unfortunately out of the picture thanks to the Spanish flu epidemic that swept through the country.
Another thing he hated about these earthly bodies of flesh and bone.
Too many things could make them ill and send them suddenly plunging into death.
Why X'ronos would choose a weak body just to be near her love, he had no idea. She could have had everything with him. Sun and Time would have been a powerful merger, but no, she had to fall for the weakling moon. Máni didn't even have his own light. All he was relied on the reflection of the Sun.
Sól.
He was the all powerful one.
He gave life to the crops these poor, pitiful humans relied on to sustain them physically as well as financially.
And yet, Time had chosen the weak Moon.
Foolish female.
CnE
Charles sighed as he looked around the tiny room that had been his home for the last week. He was never sure how it was accomplished, but suddenly all the people around him were convinced he was the butler of Downton Abbey and had been for a very long time.
He found it odd that people spoke of the housekeeper but he had as of yet to see her. How could he possibly miss the most important woman below stairs every day for over a week?
Something seemed off to him, but then again, this assignment had come up in the middle of his other one and they had replaced him and sent him here as quickly as it was possible, putting his processing skills to the test as he read every bit of information AI sent to his book unit before leaving his time and going back to this one.
So far he hadn't made any mistakes, so they evidently gave him everything he needed to know.
Thank heaven.
He'd had a few assignments where his skills of thinking quickly on his feet had been sorely tested, almost lacking, and had barely kept him from being discovered for a fraud.
He did find it odd that he was using his own name this time.
The butler of Downton Abbey at this time in history had been named Joseph Molesley, but the Joseph Molesley he'd met, he shook his head. The man had been butler to the mother of the young heir to the Earl of Grantham title, and was now living here as valet to the young man, but Charles couldn't fathom how the man could possibly have been butler of such a grand house as Downton. The man was too skittish to be a man of great authority, which one would have to be to run a house with as many servants as this one had.
But what did he know?
For all Charles knew, the changes that were made to allow him to fit in here, had changed Molesley into the bumbling man he'd met the day he arrived. In which case he'd have to keep his exasperation with the man in check as it was his fault the man was as is.
Hearing the cook shrieking in the kitchen, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was there always a shrieking woman about? She was going on about the bloody store cupboard key again, something he'd heard several times in the short time he'd been here.
Why the bloody housekeeper just didn't give the woman the key, he had no idea, but it seemed to be a bone of contention between the women that would soon drive him mad.
Ha! He could just see himself spending all of his life, which was never ending, in some asylum for the blubbering insane. That would be fun.
Or not.
Hearing the tinkling of metal mixed with the distinct sound of a woman's foot falls, Charles turned and made his way back to the door of his pantry, intent on finally meeting his counterpart. He scowled when a knock on the door stopped him in his tracks.
"Enter," he called out, trying to keep his scowl in check when he saw who it was disturbing him.
