Vanessa Koblizka

The ring does catch her eyes, its scarlet gem flashing intoxicatingly in the dim light. She recognizes immediately what it is but refuses to display any reaction other than interest and concern for her friend’s wellbeing. Her sister had a piece like it, along with a few other lucky vampires, and now Madison too apparently. She swallows back the bile of jealousy, her gentle smile never slipping, as she carefully considers her words. “I know how this sounds, so just bear with me." She warns as she starts, not letting herself worry too much about the words as they start coming out. Focusing on giving a friend advice she never got, even if its not what she thinks they want to hear. "But you are still so young. You will have decades, centuries to come to figure out who you are. These first years you are going to experience so much change, and you’re going to have to figure out what parts of your old life you can fit into your new one. Appreciate the luxury of that choice, it doesn’t mean every choice and every change is going to be easy, but you do get that choice. And it sounds like maybe you need to start making some smarter choices.”

She seems well. Healthy. That simply makes her ache with incandescent rage. It would be better if she simply was suffering in her absence, but Oksana supposes that only means she's forgotten about her. Or perhaps, never thought much of Alexei - since there is no grief on her face, that she can recognize.

Her smile turns cold, less manic and more predatory as she stares down at a love that's never once died in her heart.

The woman next to Vanessa bled, swaying by her. Oksana kicks her over, letting her lay in a puddle of her own bloody filth. Deserved, in her mind. She's had her taste. Maybe someone will care enough to clean her and save her, or perhaps she'll simply rot - What a choice, what a choice. She knows a thing or two of rotting away, of a mind twisting itself inside out and into knots.

There is almost a laugh here.

"How?" She stands and rests a gentle hand on the top of Vanessa's head, staring down at her. This position is their rightful one, right at home, Oksana above, Vanessa below. She fights the urge, for now, to tighten her grip and lift her by the hair, and simply strokes through. "I shouldn't be something you question, but accept, нет?"

At this she crouches, face to face - nose to nose, eyes wide but filled with equal parts anger and adoration. "Pretending you didn't know only makes me angrier, little fox. Here I am, in the flesh - where's my kiss?" Her words are disjointed, smooth and thick with her blend of accent, but her thoughts jump and jump -

"Are you not thrilled?"

Oksana stands, her hand landing in Vanessa’s hair and suddenly the feeling is all too familiar. Oksana’s eyes harden, and it’s a look Vanessa recognizes too well, the look in Oksana’s eyes was the same look she saw each time Alexei tipped her chin up and forced her to look him in the eye as he mocked her and paraded her about as a toy. The woman on the ground twitches, legs kicking out feebly as her breath rattles wetly in her chest and Vanessa begins to pull out of her awstruck stupor. But before she could process any of it Oksana was in her face, too close, nose to nose, and she feels old panic begin to claw up her spine.

Vanessa has been able to maintain her sanity due to the amount of control she has managed to hold on to with white knuckled obsession. Especially how she interacts with others, maintaining hard boundaries, chief among them her personal space, choosing when to allow others entry and when an invasion crossed the line. For years, she killed any man that touched her without her express permission or initiation, taking any whiff of impropriety as an excuse to work out a centuries backlog of rage. But that was who she used to be, she hadn't killed anyone in nearly four years, terrorized men sure, defended herself, but not killed in cold blood. She didn't need to, she had escaped that cycle of panic and rage. But she could feel it bubbling up again with Oksana pressed so close to her, so unexpectedly.

>>> i'm hesitant to talk to a lot of 'em, too. considering y'know. head fuck.

>>> it's been good! we didn't see a ball of twine, but there was an air bnb shaped like a giant potato. veto'd that hard. we did go to carhenge, tho. it was a big pile of nothing with cool graffiti art.

>> I’ll drop off some treats for Thoreau too, I’ve been getting freeze dried minnows and chicken hearts for Rusty which he seems to enjoy.

>> I’m not ashamed to say Middle America scares me, and I am happy to stay near the ocean.

send a symbol and/or the description of one if you can't see it for the receiver to make a moodboard/aesthetic for:

>> hey, can I interrupt your little roadtrip with a question from home?

>> I’m getting tired of the whole ships in the night thing, not being able to spend time with Remi during the day. And I remember someone saying something about you snagging some daylight jewelry. So I was hoping you could point me in the right direction?

>> how did you find someone to make your jewelry?

>> I don’t really fuck with witches, but apparently they are useful so maybe I should be more open minded.

"Is it hereditary, Depressa—" Frankie’s chin flopped into her knuckles with the grace of a bored princess holding court, "—the swelling in your brain that makes all your silly little thoughts sound great when, in fact, spoiler alert, they’re not?"

To Frankie, Vanessa’s voice was a symphony performed by musicians who’d never touched an instrument. A cat dying on a hot roof. A pigeon getting run over by a truck and somehow still trying to coo. "Your voice literally makes my ears hurt," she said, eyes widening in mock horror. "Like I’m going deaf, babes. That’s how bad it is. I’m probably gonna need surgery. I hope you’re paying for it."

She was a mean, mean girl. Rich, too — which made her even worse. If that was possible. Petty to her core, because her sister was her entire world. Narcisse put the stars in her sky, and when she was hurt, the night went pitch black. Her so-called wife had caused that darkness, had dimmed those stars, and Narcisse could forgive her all she wanted, but Frankie would not. She stared Aoife’s sister down like she was a nasty stain on her designer shoes.

"You two freak shows never learn, do you? You’re not welcome here. Nobody likes you. You’re like if boredom and death had a baby, and then that baby grew up and decided to ruin every party it’s invited to." How did she even get invited? Seriously—who needed to die tonight to make sure these two got erased from every guest list forever?

"And oh, cute — you’re wearing your great-grandma’s curtains. Bet she’s just thrilled you dug them out of the attic. Real heirloom vibes, sugerpop."

But she was not that helpless doll anymore, and she could bite back just as hard. When Aoife freed them from Alexei, Vanessa had promised herself she would never be forced into that position again. She would not kneel, she would not grovel, and she wouldn’t stand dumbly as she let herself be used as a whipping post for someone else's amusement. Grimacing, she bit down on her tongue, hard enough to bleed, hard enough to snap herself out of the stupid fawnlike countenance. Shaking out her hands, she flicked blood from her fingertips, rolling her eyes as Frankie went on and on. God, she really enjoyed the sound of her own voice, didn’t she.

Finally, she stopped, and Vanessa gave her gauche pink sparkles a once over before replying. “Really? Hundreds of years and your insulting skills amount to mocking my name and my voice?” she scoffed, Frankie wasn’t a villain, she wasn’t even someone to be scared of, just a bored Mean Girl with too much time and money, and nobody who ever told her no. “At least I don’t pay for my little entourage of lackies to follow me around and tell me I’m pretty in my pink sparkly attention seeking outfits.” every word is charged with spiteful derision as she pours all the anger she has been holding in, unleashing it on the woman who had been doing her best to make Aofie's life hell. “What it boils down to, and what must kill you, is that people choose us. Your sister, Narcisse, is stuck with you, family is family. But she chose Aoife, she continues to choose Aofie, and she chooses me.” with every word she gets more confident, a self-satisfied grin cementing itself on her crimson painted lips. “And that's something you’re just going to have to get over, Frankie, dear. Or maybe one day your sister is going to realize it's a lot easier to choose the people you care about, than it is to stick by your family when your little sister insists on being a Selfish. Little. Bitch."

She fingers at the tiny raven on her necklace, its dark metal clashing with the thin gold chain shoulder piece Aria had gotten to go with her dress.

"Making a mess?" She asks, brows knitting in concern. "I'd heard some stuff - that Kiera lady had mentioned to me that Pembroke's leader wanted to make an example out of Wyrmwood."

Then, like a lightbulb's turned on over her head, she recalls what Summer had mentioned- "-and my sister had found Kiera's ring with some blood on it up on the balcony, too- but I don't know, the Berserkers have been throwing hands at everyone all night in that little fight ring in their corner."

She enjoyed summer evenings, sun just beyond the horizon, stone still warm from its touch. She could pretend it was still there in the sky, warming her skin, bringing freckles out on her cheeks. Her sister had gained the ability to walk in the sun again, something she hadn't even known she could dream of, something she had long since given up. There was music wafting out through an open window, and she is reminded of summers past where she would sneak up to the rooftop of the ballet with a friend. How long had it been since she had truly, really, allowed herself to have a friend?

It's an adorable little club, this cabaret - all dressed to the nines, decorated as such to take away from the fact that they're selling sex and ass on a stage five feet away from where men and women sip their too expensive wine. Good service, as she's taken in without a second though. But she's not here for the vulgarity on the floor, she's here for a certain little number that she's been told works behind the scenes.

Shame she missed the days of her wrapped around a pole. It would have been more fun to simply walk up to her, hundreds in hand, to buy her time - to force her to pay attention. She has other ways, now, though.

The office is cute, small, and exactly what she needs it to be as she leads a compelled, paying customer into the back area. It's not hard to slip through the cracks and perch on the edge of the desk. She makes the human kneel down in front of her and hold their arm up in the air. A quick flick of sharp nails down the woman's wrist opens the skin so she can drain it into a nearly drained glass of whiskey. When the glass is full, she simply lets the woman bleed out onto the floor, a bit splashing onto black heels as she waits for her prey.

When the door opens again, she sips from her glass, and smiles around it - wide and manic. The short figure is exactly who she expected, and it's as if no time has passed at all. She's right back in the academy, a heart that doesn't beat echoing the memory of how wildly it used to thump for her.

"Прошло много времени, лисенок."

She'd become complacent, comfortable. She didn't stop by her office when she first got to work, instead she made her rounds, checking in with the girls in the dressing rooms, walking the floor. She should have smelled the blood, heard the faltering heartbeat of the woman dying on her floor. But she didn't, because she thought she was safe, and it hadn't occurred to her that she needed to be on guard against something from inside her office. And not against something from so far in her past, something she thought she was long over and had been long buried.

The dark haired figure sitting on her desk felt like an impossible dream from a lifetime ago. The whole world went quiet, like all the air and life had been sucked out of the whole building, and even though she hadn't needed to breathe in over a century she suddenly the weight of every missed breath aching in her lungs and a thousand unshed tears burning behind her eyes. "Oksanochka?!" the name was wrenched from her unbidden, half gasp, half sob as she stumbled into the room, rushing to the woman she had thought of as her soulmate. Mind flashing to nights pressed together under tattered blankets as they huddled for warmth. Countless hours spent practicing, dancing until their feet bled. Lavish dinners where they could dream of a better life together... She didn't even notice the body of the woman whose blood was soaking into her rug, or maybe she did, but her own body was too consumed with memories and grief to react to anything but the woman on her desk.

She collapsed to her knees in front of the other dancer, fingers digging into Oksana's thighs. "H-How are you here?" she whispered, her eyes glued to Oksana's face in quiet awe.