devil-may-care.

-

A scoff punctuated Casper’s hot take on the smell of the place, “You picked a good one then.” flowers and flesh. That just sounded fucking great. There were stories here though, good ones. Buried lies and half-truths. They were in every animal attack that got played off, they haunted the halls of the decrepit temples and whatever else was interesting about this city. Jackson could feel all of it and his inquisitive nature wanted to uncover everything, he just couldn’t help it. “That could be the title of your next manuscript: flowers and flesh. Might be a hit.” It was a light jest and came with the inherent underlying question what are you working on now, anyways?

-

“We didn’t exactly come here to vacation,” the jackal stated as a shrug fell from his shoulders, leaning against the kitchen counters and facing Jackson. His emerald hues sinking onto one of his best friends, a mixture of excitement and unease hitting Casper in waves. It wasn’t anything that he couldn’t deal with and that was the same with the witch that stood before him, the two having been through plenty of rocky situations that most wouldn’t believe. But he supposed that this one would top the cake, the start of a devious smirk tugging at the corners of Casper’s lips. “Perfect, now you are starting to get the idea—,”  and he almost added on a bit of a wink, but his friend had been with him for too long and the added sarcasm wasn’t needed, “this place is practically ripe with muse.”

-

“We love a man that hosts.” Marshall joked, mostly, anyways. It sounded nice though. A bit like his own family, the jealousy made him…. the wolf wasn’t sure how it made him feel. Like a knife was being twisted in his gut. Anger flashed through him as he looked away and did his best to think about anything other than the Hahn family filling this place with laughter when Marshall’s own family didn’t even know he was here in Greece. He focused on a bird outside the window as Casper seemed distracted by the kitchen. The sun, the moon, the truth. Marshall thought to himself. Yellow eyes reflected in the glass turned blue once more as he looked towards the taller of the two. “I’d love to meet them-” Marshall offered, “your family I mean. They seem nice. If they’re loud and presumptuous and like to make themselves at home then maybe they’re a bit like mine.” He opted to think that maybe Casper wasn’t lying and plastered over his innate jealousy with characteristic kindness. Marshall was in control now, at least for the moment. Maybe he could still be a good person, maybe someday he could go home.

-

The shifter’s mind drifted to thoughts of his mother taking in any of his new found friends from the bayside. She would probably be upset that her son hasn't introduced someone like Marshall sooner to her, though Casper would wait to get the wraith until she was actually present in Greece. “Sounds pretty familiar,” the jackal nodded his head lightly as he took in the view of what would eventually be Jackson’s gardening bases within the villa’s yard, light leaking in from the kitchen windows that danced across Casper’s cheekbones. Each of his family members held their own personal qualities, loud or docile included, but regardless— Marshall would be one of the souls that he could see amongst them all. As if he himself had been adopted as a Hahn, “I’m sure my mother would adore you in a moment's notice, along with finding a way to insult me never bringing you around in the same breath.” A true southern woman at heart and Casper knew he wouldn’t want his family any other way, “If you have time during the holidays, you should come by.”

-

“Could we?” It’s a bit different, she thinks, looking into the world of the supernatural from this kind of lens. But it’s interesting, it’s something she wants to do and she thinks it’s something they connect over. Eurydice shifts a little to be able to fold her legs so they’re beneath her, careful not to disturb the little fort that’d been made. “All of the stories everyone always came to tell ended terribly.” They were called Greek tragedies for a reason, she figured. “Sometimes that made them more romantic.” The tale of Eurydice and Orpheus comes to mind immediately, Patroclus and Achilles, Pyramus and Thisbe, and those were just a few. She frowns a little thinking about it, but she’s not here to be reminded of love ending tragically. “It is customary around this time of year to watch these scarier films, yes? Though, I must say, what mortals think is just horror is nearly everyday for some of us.” Vampires, wolves, witches, what strange tales mortals wove about them when they did ultimately lead normal lives now from what she’d seen.

-

Options rolled through Casper’s mind like a rolodex of movies he had seen or had access to, listening to her suggestion and smiled as she described the tales she had once been told as a child. It was kind of the same way he was showing her his own favorites, though she had to actually explain most of the ones that had graced her presence. Which, to Casper’s ever growing curiosity, hadn’t figured out where exactly Eurydice was from. Or what exactly she was. But the two had started to grow closer, seeing each other’s homes and the various hangouts between his long work hours. “To some, this time of year usually means scary movies and haunted houses. Some still believe in the old holiday, All Hallows Eve or Samhain, to celebrate the dark half of the year. Maybe ward off a ghost or two,” he still remembers some of the knowledge had absorbed during his time working for his family's haunted house tours back in New Orleans. Though he least expected to be using the information in this setting, “Um, let’s see.” Casper pulls a box labelled ‘Holiday’ and starts to rummage through its contents, “Maybe you’ll like the Nightmare Before Christmas, hm— or Spirited Away?” His emerald hues caught the outline of Hocus Pocus, but decided against it since they had just finished a movie that basically prosecuted witches, even if it was more humorous. “Mary in the Witch's Flower,” a small huff escapes his nostrils before he turns his gaze back to Eurydice, eyes still soft, “Any look exciting to you?”

      “Great. Because I’m starving.” Adam hadn’t eaten all day – he only had coffee when he got up that morning, and that was as far as it went. And as someone who loved to eat and did it regularly, he was in dire need of getting some calories into his system, especially after having to get Casper out of trouble. “You sound ridiculous,” he added, rolling his eyes. “I hope you’re aware that I deserve for you to buy me something for all the trouble you put me through today.” Adam shook his head a little, a laugh escaping his lips. “How about some gyros? That always makes my day.”

-

“Squatting?” Wasn’t that a workout? Last Gael checked, that was a workout to get your glutes looking better. Why would someone be doing that in an empty house? Then again, maybe it meant something else. He was sure that Casper wasn’t just using words like that without meaning something entirely different from what Gael thought the other meant. He wasn’t going to think too hard on it though. “Wouldn’t we own the place now though? Nobody else claimed it so it’s kind of ours.” That was what Eurydice had said. And Ekho had agreed with it. Gael didn’t have many thoughts behind his eyes so he usually just agreed with what the other dryads were doing. He simply used his braincells to be nice. That was the least he could do. He looked up at the menu in front of them. “I don’t know what to get.” Then he looked back at the shifter. “I don’t know. You would know better than us, right?”

-

Casper had always known that there were parts of his brain that weren’t working quite right, even as a young child, though the shifter wasn’t a complete idiot. But that didn’t mean he was going to place his stake within these grounds. The most he knew was what he possibly stumbled upon several years ago in a news article that, in all reality, was skimmed at most. Not actually digested or read. So maybe he knew a hint of the law of the United States, but hardly Greek law and what the rules on housing were. The jackal shrugged his shoulders and his lips curved downward, “Couldn’t truthfully say I would know, friend. Just— ah, asking questions. You don’t have to know the answer.” Guess it really wasn’t any of his business anyway, so he moved off the subject all together and looked up towards the menu. Emerald hues danced across some options before asking the cashier for a cafe au lait and a red eye, today seeming like the kind of day that needed a coffee for both hands, along with one of the chocolate croissants. He turned his gaze back to Gael and gave him a chipper smile, “Get anything you want, it’s on me.”

“That is so sad that her family did that to her. It was not her fault. I do not blame her in the slightest.” Frowning, she turns her head to look at him on the couch beside her. His home is odd, but in an almost comforting way, it’s something she doesn’t quite understand. There’s odd things, stuff she thinks she’d find more at home in a witch’s house, an herb shop even. It sort of makes her feel at home though, like the place is some kind of extension of the woods. Before them, the credits to the film they’d been watching roll. “Is there more like that? Films about witches?” @casperhahn​

-

Movie night. The first of what would end up being many within Casper’s new bayside villa. While weeks had now passed by since officially moving in, the jackal still hadn’t found a spot for all the items he would eventually be displaying. Glass jars full of oddities and the strange objects he had spent years acquiring over his travels. Small boxes were still in various places around the home, many within the living room that the two currently resided in. Most of them carried movies, the shifter pulling out personal favorites that he had plans to show Eurydice eventually. “Countless,” the shifter states as he pauses the film, hues moving back to her to capture more of her reaction. Blankets and pillows were strewn about around them, creating a fort-like effect on a juniper-tinted sectional, “and not all of them end this miserably.” He offered her a gentle grin, “Would you rather watch one of those instead?”

-

“Oh.” Aster said simply, the meaning of this word sank into his skin as the dryad considered all that he had been in the Golden Age of Greece. The life he had now was a shadow of what it had once been, most of his siblings were dead, those he knew were all but erased from existence. Chased from this world and replaced with the juvenile Olympians and their progeny. “This… Is this a shameful thing?” 

-

“Not in the slightest,” the shifter states as emerald hues fall on the dryad, a more gentle tone rooting in as he continued, “Actually— it was kinda refreshing to see.” If the stories that his father had told him were true about Fenrir, his soul deserved a break after all these years and hoped that the rift was finding peace. That his revival only allows him to flourish. “The most shocking thing was seeing him living. Everyone has always been so certain of his death,” but now with so many other creatures and rifts littering the bayside, nothing seemed impossible anymore.

-

Years passed but one thing had remained consistent: Emma’s love of music. She’d sung across various decades but had loved most the birth of folk or blues, that was her vice whenever the vampire took to the stage. She wasn’t one for high energy numbers but preferred instead to stand before a crowd and let her music create the vulnerability she avoided in her day to day life. Then, just as soon as she had dared, the window into her soul would close once more, Emma would leave the stage with a smile and oftentimes one or two flowers. “Casper?” She had to be sure, he was older than she remembered, but it hadn’t been that long, anyways. “That is… a long story.” She laughed before she gestured to the bartender for her usual. “Lets just chaulk it up to the Mamma Mia! fantasy, minus the romance.” Emma spared him a smile, “I came here with a friend and I think the weather kind of agrees with me.” A glass of sparkling was put in front of her and Emma took a seat next to the shifter, “And you?”

-

Part of Casper knew that he couldn’t have looked that different from all those years ago when he was sneaking around New Orleans, too young for any of the fiascos that he had managed to find himself in yet survived them nonetheless. Many of the Hahn’s had been known for similar behavior throughout their history and wondered now if Emma was privy to any of those secrets. Maybe one day he would find himself asking, but other topics were more important at the moment and was truly more interested in the path that led her here. “Nothing quite like ABBA and that salty Mediterranean breeze,” he agreed and realized the weather probably agreed with most vampire’s given the climate, “And I wish I could say the same, but alas— I finally landed enough funding for a little film project I’ve been working on.” But honestly, there was nothing little about it and the filming had already been proceeding for months. Though work had just been a wonderful excuse to get out here and was finding the city to be booming with curiosities, along with the place seeming to be a magnet to everyone he knew, “Been here for, uh? Bout five months now?”

-

“She raised my brother and me.” Zeke said simply, hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels and took in the insanely high ceilings. Never was much one for church, faith wasn’t something a lot of people grew into and he was no different. “Scylla- Selene.” She never liked the monicker, that’s what they called her but that’s not who she was. She’d been like a mother to him and Leon, two scrappy kids who were trying to scrape by that wouldn’t have amounted to much of anything if not for her. “Don’t know much about a Rougarou but there’s a whole lot of shit that goes bump in the night.” He sighed before he drew his eyes towards the handsome but boyish features of the other shifter. Zeke produced a flask from under his jacket and drew it to his lips to take a swig before he offered it to the stranger. “Wouldn’t be surprised if they were out there too.”

-

The jackal had known of others within his shifter line that had been very close to even his own gene pool, hearing of the Lykos becoming very prominent in the bayside. Though he had only briefly run into Fenrir himself, Casper took that brush with fate as a good sign for himself. “So, you already knew that many of those myths existed?” There were clear hints of excitement in his tone at the mention of Scylla, there were also fragments of nervousness about all the things he still didn’t quite understand or know. “What was that like for you and your brother? To grow up under the very influence of the one you descended from?” he said as his emerald irises softened, looking over the man and allowing his mind to be swept up by the fantasy.

     “I know, but you know I have to say it anyway.” It was simply a part of being the cop friend — to also be the one who reminded others of rules and to not do anything stupid, especially not something that landed them in jail. Crossing his arms over his chest, he arched his brows. “Is that so?” He had to admit that was definitely a stupid rule, and he could understand if someone broke it simply because it made no sense that it existed. Shaking his head a little, he looked out over the street. “Good for us that they didn’t ban it then. Now, are you hungry?”

-

@casperhahn​

The city was… Noisy. Not audibly, but in feeling. Jackson couldn’t go more than a couple blocks without feeling like something awful had happened where he was standing. Music helped, staying home helped more. He’d always been a bit of a homebody and preferred to work in the greenhouse there or write from the study, Corinth as it turned out was no different. “Place is nice.” Jackson remarked simply, Cas had gone ahead and gotten a place big enough for the both of them. There was room to grow too, in case the shifter’s sister ever turned up here. “The vibes in this city are rancid though.” The clairvoyant pointed out as he leaned against the counter, it had been a tough year and he was glad to be somewhere new. A fresh start, with his closest friend.

-

The shifter knew Jackson would like the place long before he had set foot inside. There was room on the patio for his ever growing collection of plants, along with space for the possibility of a small garden and grove. But then there was all the extra space and the extra rooms. While Casper had already picked out his favorite, the other areas were still ripe for picking and left it to his friend to decide. It was only fair, the witch having been his closest companion for decades and had followed the jackal on his many chaotic endeavors. “Glad you like it,” a soft grin as he entered the shared kitchen space, pulling out a couple of mugs from the small collection he started to acquire. Boxes littered the floors still as the two were in the stages of adjustment, which were highlighted in the morning lighting. “The smell is rotten, like a mixture of decaying fruit—” his nose almost curled as brows began to furrow lightly, “flowers, and flesh.”

Eurydice would sooner set her own tree on fire than admit that she’d actually found the romantic stories to be best. The mere thought of the original tale of the Orpheus and Eurydice…She remembered nearly falling out of the tree she’d been perched on at the suspense of it all. “Fantasy to us wouldn’t be all that interesting, would it?” It’s a playful question as she flicks her curtain of black hair over her shoulder. They were fantasy, they were myth, it would just be life for them, surely. “What is popular now?” She pauses for a moment, looks at a vendor selling various fruits before continuing on. “Are things just as tragic?”

-

The jackal understood she had a point, nodding his head lightly as she spoke and almost slowed in his walking pace. Sure, it’s only considered fantasy to those who didn’t know it actually existed right under their noses. But that didn’t make it any less interesting and the idea of those stories being a reality had always peaked at the shifter’s interests. Maybe that’s what had enthralled him in the first place— that there could be such a thing as a Dracula who once fell in love while a hunter is constantly after them. “I find my life to be highly entertaining,” he joked back, “You wouldn’t find any interest in stories about it?” A tone that oozed sarcasm and he hoped translated over well enough before moving on to answer her own posed questions, “I suppose humanity is predictable in that way. Tragedy, romance, sprinkle that with some comedy bits and thrills.” Now his fingers are fiddling with random trinkets as he passes by an open booth, the gleam of light catching the cheekbone and giving off a lavender hue, “But there’s beauty in all that, too.”