Immortal... One Way or Another [Closed to Aurora]

Sam awoke in his apartment thanks to the chirping of some very loud birds on his windowsill, he rubbed his eyes as he sat up and tossed the duvet off of himself. He looked around, leaned over and banged on the window, causing the birds to disperse amongst themselves. He stood up and stretched, clicking several bones in his body, now it was time for his daily routine. Shower, brush teeth, dry, clothes on and toast for breakfast, the same routine that he completes every morning, except this time it was slightly different.

Sam walked out of his kitchen, holding his plate of buttered toast, he grabbed a piece and took a crunching bite out of one slice before coming to a stop, something was different with the room, the walls faintly changed colours, the colours of the rainbow to be exact. Sam moved around his apartment, watching his shadow move across the walls, it actually made it easier for Sam to pinpoint where it was coming from. Amber jumped onto the back of the couch to see what was happening as Sam moved forward to the crystal, could today be the day? Sam had been looking forward to this for a while now, every day he would wake up and hope it would be the last day he aged, he would have dreams and nightmares about it, the choice of becoming ageless had it's pros and cons, but Sam seemed pleased with his choice. Aurora had told him the crystal would be the means for the two to communicate with each other, what that meant exactly was something different entirely, Sam looked around cautiously before speaking "Erm... Aurora?" he said, he was tempted to touch it to see what would happen, but he did not want to risk it and end up breaking his only way of becoming ageless.

With only one of her prism shards in the world, it was easy enough for Aurora to follow it. It was a great distance away from London however, it seemed Sam had traveled far while Aurora worked on her pet project for him. Aurora wasn't sure how much time had passed, it was difficult for her to percieve the illusion of time the same way inhabitants of this world did, especially when spending time in her own world. Just as light changes as it shines through a prism so to does the illusion of time differ between worlds. Regardless, Aurora had made a pledge and a queen must keep her word at all costs, even if that cost is a long and boring flight across the ocean. She sent a message to her court letting them know her absence would be longer than expected. she had only just begun flying towards the shore when she decided this method was much too boring, and she tossed some of her considerable wealth towards a first class seat on a plane that was able to fly much faster than she could alone. The food on the flight was more disappointing than first class seemed to imply, but at least she had shortened the journey substantially. she arrived at the final hours of darkness, and by the time she located the shard morning had crept up from beyond the horizon. She had tried to reach Sam through the prism shard, but had gotten no response. Perhaps he simply wasn't keeping it on him, Aurora hoped something unseemly had not occurred.

Arriving at the apartment that housed a piece of her self, a quick peak through the window confirmed that it was indeed Sam and he had indeed not been keeping the shard close enough for the telepathic link to be achieved. Aurora quickly became paper thin and slid under the doorway, emerging as a bright green caterpillar on the other side. The head of the caterpillar grew out like a slinky and touched the floor of the room, the rest of the caterpillar's body following and reforming on the ground as the young brightly colored girl Sam had encountered in London. "Hail sir smoke! Did you think I forgot about you?" A bag appeared at her side and she retrieved a small vial she had been carrying. Well, she had created the illusion that she was carrying it which was similar enough to actually carrying it that the inhabitants of this world couldn't understand the difference. "I have prepared a formula which may grant your wish." She held the vial of sparkling blue-green liquid in front of her. She didn't actually have any other humans to test it on, so there was little guarantee the first attempt would work 100% but it would at least give Aurora a point from which to perfect the formula. Of course there was also a 23% chance it would just make him grow vestigial gills, but Aurora had brought another potion to counteract whatever the effects were in case something unfortunate did happen. Using imaginary sciences and magicks on real beings could be very unpredictable, but creating imaginary magick to counter imaginary magick was child's play to the Queen of nothing. "Feel free" she said, shaking the glass corked vial. "It is your reward after all, and there's almost no chance that it could be fatal."

He had no answer for some time, he thought it was just a false alarm and that he would have to wait even longer until he was startled by a loud voice behind him. He span around to see Aurora standing in his apartment, how she got in was one question that he wanted to ask, but he was quite excited to have her visit that he didn't want to waste a lot of time. "It has been some time, but everyday I hoped that you hadn't forgotten about me" A small bag appeared out of nowhere by her hip, she flipped open the bag and slid out a small vial, she claimed the blue-green liquid was the key to immortality... there it was... immortality in a bottle.

He slowly took the vial out of her hand and held it up, shaking it slightly, all he had to do was down this drink and he would be immortal, it sounds too easy, but he trusted Aurora knew what she was doing. It had been so long since the two met, and now his dream was reality, he popped the cork off of the vial in his hand and slowly lifted it to his mouth, he tilted it back quickly and let the fluid fall down his throat, it was slightly bubbly and warm and it made Sam feel a little sick, there is nothing worse than a warm fizzy drink. The liquid was playing with his insides, causing him to have all kinds of trapped air in his chest and it was slightly painful, "How do we know if it worked?" he asked, a feint sight of smoke came out of his mouth as the liquid continue to mess with his body.

Aurora watched curiously as he bravely downed the contents of the bottle. She wondered if the smoke escaping his mouth was due entirely to the potion or had something to do with the man's strange physiology. "Well." She started in response to the young man's question. "Imaginary science can be unpredictable when applied to real creatures, but it will definitely do something." She bent forward, examining Sam's body for changes. "So if nothing else happens, then it worked!" Even as she said this she checked and made sure she had the "antidote" on her. He hadn't grown grills or turned into a turtle, so the outlook was pretty good so far. Aurora craned her neck to examine the side of Sam's own. "You uh...aren't starting to feel like a fish are you?"

Well as long as nothing else happened to him, it would have worked and as far as Sam could tell, nothing else was happening to him. He had that slight amount of smoke come out of his mouth, but he just assumed it was the elixir playing with his body, he had not faced anything dramatic yet.

"A... fish? No... I don't feel like anything is happening to me right now, but that's a good thing right?" Sam could feel like there as something happening to him, but it didn't seem like anything major was changing in his body. A few seconds later, he could feel a strangle tingling in his neck, he opened his mouth to explain this abnormality to Aurora, but no sound came out, it was as if he had lost his voice... and now he was losing his ability to breath. Sam started pointing to his throat so Aurora had some idea what was going on, he was trying his best to breathe but he could only make a choking sound, Sam started feeling around his neck to see if there was something causing it, and he found the problem, he had some kind of strange holes appear on both sides of his neck, he could put his fingers inside of them, but when he really thought about what he was doing, it made him shiver and almost throw up. There was nothing he could do about what was going on and he just hoped that Aurora had expected this and prepared in advance, one thing is for sure, this was no immortality potion...

Aurora gave a disapproving look as Sam began gasping for air. "Oh dear...immortality and evolution are such close concepts, I feared this may happen..." She put her finger to her chin as if deep in thought. "Looks like I have more research to do..." She almost looked as if she was turning to leave when she remembered the person gasping for air in front of her. "Oh dear, my apologies. Drink this, quickly." She said appearing another smaller vial filled with a solid green bubbling liquid. "My my, I had hoped the first attempt would at least turn you into a turtle. I'll have to start from scratch." She said aloud as if no one was in the room with her before turning back to Sam. "Well, don't get discouraged. This is all part of science. Every mistake that doesn't kill you means one step closer to success!" She said pointing a finger to the ceiling like an explanation mark before leaning towards Sam. "ummm...you are all right, right?"

Sam was still grasping for air as Aurora seemed to be having her own fun, she looked like she was just going to leave him before she remembered what was happening, she handed him another vial with a green liquid this time, he assumed this would reverse whatever changes that had been made to him, so he popped the lid off and downed it, a few seconds later his holes on his neck shriveled back up to form a normal neck once again, he rested his arm on a desk as he bent over and got his breath back, his heart was racing, but it was good to taste oxygen again. Aurora seemed to think this was all quite amusing as she came up with some sly jokes, Sam looked up at her before saying "Do you think this is funny? You realize this is my life you are playing with here... I've waited months for this and all it did was turn me into some kind of fish and now you have to start from scratch? No I'm not alright, I almost just suffocated to death and now I have to wait more months before you can get it right... In the interest of staying alive, you can just forget this immortality thing and leave , I appreciate you trying but I don't feel safe enough to do it." he said bluntly as he returned back to his bedroom, still coughing for some air. He was angry, he was angry that he had waited months for this, every day he would wake up and hope it was the day only for it to come crashing down when it happened and then be told to wait all over again, he just wanted immortality right now more than anything. He grabbed a hoodie and returned to the living area to see if Aurora had let or not.