lethal weapon

Delia walked through the department, stopping by her coworker’s desk and putting a file in front of him. “We’re signed off to start. You ready to go?” She was restless, partly from the way the year had started off (everyone seemed to be a little restless and on edge still) and simply because it had been too long since she had worked a proper case. “We got an arsonist to catch, no time to lose, right?”

Back when Trent had been more unscrupulous he would have jumped at the chance to cover this whole situation as a story. He in the past didn’t have anyone to worry about haunting him. Now thing’s were wildly different. He hoped to not see the visage of his mother now and was keeping his head down as he tried to be useful during this whole nightmare. “ I’m not an expert on any of this” Trent admitted as someone spoke up in his direction “ I don’t want to say anything unless I become horribly wrong. “ He shrugged. “ Yeah I’m fine. No harm no foul, but I’m trying to get the hell out of here before I see something I don’t want to see”

Delia glanced from him back to the chaos of the streets. “Yeah, I understand the feeling,” she told him. She never had been able to stand being wrong, had always felt the underlying need to be right at all times. “Where are you going? I can help you get out.”

Spencer was not doing well with what he was seeing. He wasn’t falling apart yet like others, but he was trying his best to cope. He had prepared to see his parents once he realized what was happening, but maybe he wasn’t as brave as he thought he was. What if he was proven to be a terrible guardian by the only people whose opinion of his parenting skills mattered. It was a situation he honestly wanted to avoid. Spencer turned a corner and nearly bumped into a woman ho he wasn’t sure if he had met before and instantly took a step back. “Whoa” He replied holding his hands up, despite the fact that he himself was already dead. “He didn’t feel like being shot though despite that fact. “ Honestly who knows. I thought I knew everything about what existed out here but I’ve been wrong so many times so far. I’m okay though. I’m already dead so the only pain I’m gonna get is emotional”

Delia looked the kid up and down, recognizing him quickly as one of the Sloane kids, the oldest. “ah, right. Fair enough.” If she was right about him being a Sloane then from what she knew emotional pain could come in large amounts for the kid with ghosts involved. “Sorry about the scare with the gun. I promise I’ve done this long enough to not be trigger happy.” She glanced around and chewed on her lip. “You’re Spencer, right? Where are your siblings? Do we need to find them?”

Time: 12:35 AM

Location: Irving Plaza

Status: Open

Cordelia had not wanted to deal with this tonight. All she wanted was one town event to go well but from her short experience so far and what she’d been told, that didn’t feel likely to happen any time soon. This one was the worst.

She tossed herself over a bench and squatted beside someone else that was there for the shelter. “These things don’t seem dangerous, right? Like they can’t cause damage?” Her mind raced over video game references and she almost snorted in amusement because it made her think of her son. They couldn’t risk the assumption. What if they could? The ghosts didn’t seem to only have died in Lethe; what if her mother was here and could harm? Her stomach flipped because she had no idea how to stop her. “Goddamn, I need to retire,” she growled as she put her gun back in its holster, knowing full well it wasn’t going to do anything for her tonight. “Are you alright?” she finally asked the other.

It seemed to be a fairly lucky day, seeing as Cordelia had just been walking home from work and hadn’t even been looking for the man who had been spending so much time around her aunt. But the moment that she recognized him across the street, she changed direction and made her way to the opposite sidewalk, cutting around and stopping in front of him to cut him off with a small, hopefully slightly intimidating smile.

“Hello, there. I hear you’ve been tonguing my aunt.”

Awe. She’s cool. Damn it. Large eyes dart to the phone. Now that she knows she can make a phone call, who the hell would she call? She’s sure as hell isn’t calling Fayre. If Hale called Yuri, she wouldn’t hear the end of it. Zanna? No, thanks. That would way too awkward for Hale to handle. Maybe she should pretend to call a lawyer. Yasemin? Would that scare police into letting her go without having to say anything? Then again, these aren’t normal police. Everyone here is supernatural. Like they’d be scared of a lawyer. Yasemin would also probably fire Hale on the spot if the councilwoman knew that her assistant was here. Hale wasn’t going to take that chance. “I’m not being aggressive,” Hale says, clearly offended. “And it’s not my fault that I’m loud by nature, alright? I can’t help it.” The young vampire squirms in her seat. She’s beginning to feel trapped in the police station and not wanting to think about how unbearable this situation was, her attention starts to deter from the officer in front of her and elsewhere. The loud noises from other yelling inmates, the of clutter paperwork scattered of the desks, the flickering of overheads lights are proving to be huge distractions.  Hale can feel the frustration building. It’s a tightness in her chest that she tries to knead away with her knuckles. Then, in a small moment of clarity, she remembers she’s talking to someone. Quickly, her eyes go back to Cordelia. “I’m - I’m sorry. I’m asking… I’m asking who, what now?”

Cordelia couldn’t help the corner of her lips from twitching upwards just a little as she leaned forward again. “I get being loud. I really fucking do. I always got in trouble for ‘being aggressive’ too. So if you say you’re not, I’m going to believe you like I wish people would have me. So don’t make me sorry for that, deal?” She leaned back again and watched her curiously. “I’m a nymph, earth nymph, and my name is Cordelia. You can call me that, Delia, or Officer Sturmer. Whatever you prefer. And you’re Hale, yes?” Delia had struggled for a long time, deciding what name to use. Her mother was a psychopath and her father was absent. There wasn’t exactly an ideal choice there. But she figured that sometimes a name was just a name.

“Irma works fine, there’s no nicknames for a name like mine unfortunately, not unless you want to use something dreadful like Irmy.” Her face twisted with obvious distaste. The last time someone used that nickname, she broke her hand punching them in the nose. Irma snorted, leaning back against the bench. “What, do you have an abundance of people sitting around scolding you?” she asked, only a little surprised if Cordelia said yes. Ytel was the same, something about him just encouraged people to give him a stern look, and she thought that Cordelia had that same nothing. Not that she would say as much. “See, I’ve known you were in town for a long while, but I never did ask why. My brother doesn’t share his thoughts freely unless I pry and I don’t always have the patience to decipher him like a Rubik’s cube.” Not a kind assessment of her brother, and not entirely true sometimes either, but Irma stuck with it. “For him? For the town? I’m not complaining, my son deserves to know his cousin and you deserve to know him,” she said with a sigh. “Our family is very small now, according to my brother at least.” 

Delia laughed a little at the mention of the name Irmy. So far, Irma almost seemed more like Cordelia herself or David than her father, which came as nothing short of a relief. “At least a handful,” she replied with a slightly mischievous smile. “You should have seen the man who trained me as a cop. It was a constant line of ‘don’t do that, come back here, violence isn’t always the answer’.” She understood the lack of patience to pry, she herself wasn’t usually one for it either. Really, she didn’t have a lot of patience in general. “I don’t bother with it either. Particularly with him, but... I’m sure you know he and I don’t really see eye to eye.” That was one way to put it, the nice way. Her honest way was that he never gave a flying shit so why should she? “Is it just the four of us now?” she couldn’t help but to ask. “I, uh, I really don’t know that much.”

Date: September 29th, 2020 Location: Lethe Police Station Time: 1:03pm Status: Closed @cordeliasturmer

So far a week had gone by since the fiasco at the parade and things had more less calmed down again. The air still mildly smelled of smoke and burning rubber, that didn’t sit well with a pregnant stomach but what could she do? Stay inside all day, not go to work? Sounded boring, and Oona’s body is already swimming with hormones, hunger and exhaustion. She finds herself now munching on a Snicker’s bar she’d pulled from the venting machine, sitting in a desk chair wheeling back and forth past Cordelia as she works. Now that Oona’s stuck with desk duty, any time her friends are around work, she takes advantage of bugging them for company. “Did your feet swell up this much when you were pregnant?” The werewolf grumbles between bites, glaring down at her ankles as they push off into another direction. From his office, Oona can see Noah staring at her like a hawk, eyes narrowed. He’d much rather have her on maternity leave as soon as possible, mostly out of worry, but he keeps her around because, well…fuck, no one likes doing paperwork. “How long you think before Noah’s pulsing vein finally pops? Bet it’ll be sooner than I do, Christ,” she huffs, trying her best attempt at shifting in the seat she’s currently stuck in. 

Delia smiled a little at her desk before raising her eyes up to the other police officer with a small hum of answer. “They did. But you know, you gotta watch that. If they get too swollen you need to see a doctor and it could be hypertension, which isn’t too bad, just means that you need partial bed rest.” She immediately felt bad for any worry she might have possibly caused and added, “I’m sure it’s not, but it is totally normal. My feet swelled like balloons. I had to get new shoes, I’m telling you.” Her eyes followed the werewolf's to Noah and chuckled to herself. “I give him another week, optimistically, of course. There’s a chance it’ll happen before that though.” She grinned at her friend before saying, “We both know I’m pessimistic.” She watched Oona carefully, worry lining over her face. She couldn’t help it, not when the other woman had worked so hard to help her adjust to Lethe. Being pregnant was hard, a full time job like no other. Even when you were asleep, you were still working. “How is it going though? Are you getting enough help and rest?”

@cordeliasturmer

She brought a wrapped present to work. She forgot how old Lucy was (she actually forgot a lot about Lucy, like the fact that he was a grown ass man), so the wrapping paper was in fact Disney princesses. “Alright, I can tell you what it is because its for your kid, right? You won’t spoil it for Lucy? I got her a Blu-Ray collection of horror movies! It’s great because it clashes with the wrapping paper, she won’t see it coming!” She leaned back in her chair, her desk next to Delia’s. “And the birthday is easy because it’s 9/9. So I gotchu for every year on nowadays, Delia. I gotchu.”

Cordelia grinned at her friend and took the present, trying to work up the heart to tell the lich that her child was not only a boy but an adult. “I don’t spoil it. But Henri, I really hate to tell you this, but... Luci’s a boy. And he’s an adult.” She grimaced apologetically at the girl because the thought she had put into this, even into the wrapping alone, was spectacular and it meant a lot. “But thank you, and he will love it. He’ll actually get a kick out of the paper too, just because it doesn’t match the gift itself. But Henri, thank you for remembering. That is.. That really means a lot. It makes settling into a new place easier to have people like you around.”

Date: Monday, September 9th, 2020. Time: 10:02 pm. Location: Lethe Police Station.

“This is ridiculous. I didn’t do anything!” Hale exclaims, sitting back into her chair and throwing her hands up in the air as the officer who was questioning her excused himself to go check camera footage. “Aren’t some of you supernatural lie detectors? Don’t werewolves have good instincts? Someone in here has to know that I’m telling the truth and let me go!” This was possibly the most stupid Hale could come close to being arrested over, and she truly didn’t even do anything this time around. She was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time, always with the wrong people. And by wrong people, in her eyes, that means they ending up not know how to steal properly after talking a big game. “I’m being treated as if I’m some criminal! If that’s the case, do I at least get a fucking phone call, or something?” Hale is talking to anyone who would listen at this point, trying to gauge someone’s attention. It didn’t help that Hale wasn’t telling any of the officers anything about the people she was with. Snitches get stitches, and what not. But she’s sure it would be much worse and much more than stitches here. Those who actually stole were able to book it and get away, but having been so shocked, it was Hale who is now taking the fall.

cordelia sturmer.

“Well,” Delia said with a click of her tongue, “pity for you I’m not a werewolf.” She glanced over at the girl sympathetically, though the emotion was masked on her face. The truth was that Cordelia herself didn’t think she was guilty, but she couldn’t exactly reveal that outright, could she? She sat across from the girl easily, folding her hands on the other officer’s desk as she let out a breath and eyed the girl. Back when Nolyn was her partner, it was easy to know for a fact if someone was guilty or not. Fae were good like that. But luckily, she had good instincts, even though she wasn’t a werewolf. “You can get a call, sure. But I do need you to tell me again what happened. We’re not sticking you in a cell here, I just want to talk. But I do need you to talk to me. That means calm yourself down and stop yelling. I can’t help you if you’re going to be aggressive. Which I understand, by the way. I’m pretty hotheaded, just ask the guy who trained me.” Her mother had always told her that it was strange she wasn’t a fire nymph, that she had enough fire running in her for the both of them. it wasn’t a comment she particularly liked to get from a madwoman, but it was true enough.

Her cards were ruined and she had half a mind to fling them back into that witch’s face for her little water trick. But Irma was going to be the bigger person. She would find her later and rot the wood on her porch, that would serve her well. Irma huffed, shuffling the deck a little more, trying to find the feeling again. Whatever people thought about tarot cards being a witch hobby, they were wrong, it was a … not a magic thing, but something else. She closed her eyes, focused on this, and only peeled them open at a question. Oh, there was only one person in town with a face like that. “Depends on how talkative David is, I imagine my brother is limited on what he says. We haven’t met in person yet, but I certainly know you,” she replied, folding the cards up in a cloth and holding them in her lap.

She tilted her chin, indicating the bench beside her. Whether her niece took it or not was up to her, but Irma studied her all the same. Cordelia looked how Irma always imagined her own mother looking, with that blonde hair and bright eyes. It was a shame that Irma was only seeing her in person now, despite how long David had said she was in town. It had been on her to-do list, but like all other things in life, other things got in the way.  “I’m Irma. You’ve met my son and my brother, but not me yet, it’s almost like fate was saving up for something. Come now, sit, what am I going to do, attack you? Scorn you for not seeing me? I have no time for that.” Mostly because if she argued with Cordelia for not seeing her, she had to play fair and accuse herself of the same. “Do you prefer Cordelia or Delia? I’ve thought Cordelia when thinking of you, but everyone says it differently.”

Before the woman even told her her name, Cordelia had realized who she was. “Irma,” she repeated after the older woman had said it herself. Aunt Irma, she supposed. Was she supposed to call her that, or was it weird? Her father had lost the right to his title, but Irma? No, not really. She was Eden’s godmother and had never been that consistent in her life until now, so what right did she have? But it was different, being in the aunt role and the parent role. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the bench beside her, leaving a few inches between them just for the sake of keeping things from becoming too awkward or forced. 

She couldn’t help herself from smiling an easy smile at her aunt, immediately feeling relaxed around her. She liked how she spoke, the air that she spoke it with, and the way that her tone and speech patterns were almost familiar. “I suppose not. Which I appreciate for the record, I don’t have time for it either. Either is fine. When I was younger, I preferred Delia, but now I really don’t care. And it’s alright if I call you Irma, yes?”

Location: anywhere indoors (councilman’s chambers, cafe, shops, etc)

Time: 11am-3pm

Date: late August, 2020

Status: open

Javi kept her busy, and sometimes she wondered if he just didn’t want an assistant at all. She thought they got on rather well, and he had a hot son after all. However, he kept her doing busywork and running errands, doing dry cleaning and picking up lunches for the entire council it seemed. Maybe he wanted her to meet the town, maybe he wanted her out of his hair, maybe he just wanted her to earn her salary. Whatever it was, as she ran around today, she nearly bumped into somebody. “Oh, hey, you’ve got a little, well, I dunno if that’s dirt or coffee or dribble or what… Right here,” she gestured to her own chin. She placed her coffee on the counter/table and went to pick up something from the floor. As she did, her thumb caught under the stapler and, with a snap–thanks electric staplers–got punctured that went through her nail, rupturing the nail plate as blood spilled out. “Fuck,” she muttered, dropping the books back onto the floor in a mess. “Don’t. I’ve got it,” she said sharply, sucking on her thumb. When it came back, the blood had been licked clean and the small cut healed. It was so minor, so she forced a smile, trying to keep the mood light. 

Cordelia blinked as she almost bumped into a girl, her brows knitting together in confusion as she brought a hand to her chin. Huh. Dirt. Probably from the farm. She turned her own newly received coffee in her hand and opened her mouth to say thank you when she saw the girl staple herself and grimaced in sympathy, moving forward easily as she knelt beside her. “Shit, are you okay? Let me see.” Not bothering to wait, she took the girl’s hand and examined the cut, only to see it heal. She nodded easily and let go of her. “Right. Werewolf or fae?” Was there another one that healed? She wasn’t entirely sure, actually, it was hard to think of them all off of the top of her head. She hadn’t had too many experiences with werewolves, just running into them here and again over the years. Of course, Nolyn and his family were fae, and she had seen that healing first hand, unable to forget the first time he had been shot on the job and had healed as if it were nothing but a scrape. She had been lucky that fae could even extend that to others, seeing as she herself had always been so careless.

“Still with the first-name basis, ‘Delia? Or I suppose you want me to add the ‘Cor’ in the beginning?” He hadn’t chosen the name for his daughter, but he had no right to bicker about liking it or disliking it because, well, he hadn’t spent those formative years with her. They weren’t a hugging family, not like he was with his sister, and that saddened him. But he had to move on from it. Ytel patted the horse, done for the moment, wanting to switch gears to the barn where there was shade. Maybe then she wouldn’t glare at him so much. “Did your mom ever show you how to milk a cow? It’s rather therapeutic, actually. Would you like to join me?” He was trying to hide his anxiety of wanting to be ‘the good father’ with his one and only daughter – surprise, maybe he had more, but this was the only one he knew by name, what she looked like, who the mother was, etc – by shrugging it off almost as if it were a game. It always came across as cold to Delia, but he never meant it that way. He loved her, dearly, more than he’d ever loved her mother. That wasn’t love, that was infatuation, passion and curiosity. That was short-term. But even if Delia wasn’t in the center of his life – that would be Irma, perhaps – he still loved her. 

He wanted a daughter. Maybe it took him too long to realize this, maybe he didn’t deserve her or her son or any part of her life, but damnit if he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He’d lost enough in his life. Delia didn’t even know about Johannes, only about their parents. She thought Irma was his only sibling. If only. At eleven, Ytel lost his twin brother and he’d never been the same since. Of course he’d grown a lot since those years, centuries ago, but was it something one could ever get over? Like losing a parent. Funny how he didn’t see the similarities between what he was doing to her, and what had already happened to him ages ago. 

Before Delia could open her mouth, Ytel gestured her to follow him. He handed the reins to her, a shadow of a grin on his lips. When was the last time she had touched a horse? “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he hushed at the beast, since he smelled strangers. “Bill here is named after the Lord of the Rings pony. He’s not a pony as you can see, but he’s the same color and his mane is even the same shade of blonde. Like ours, almost.” She wasn’t blind, she could see. “He even has the white nose. Same breed, but I can’t for the life of me remember the names.” In any language, he thought. He led Delia to the shed to put away the comb and lock Bill in the stable, then made his way to the cattle. It was surprising that so long ago, animals spread the plague just like humans but now he was working side by side with them, not anxious about that, at least. 

Delia rolled her eyes. “Delia is fine, I don’t give a shit. And yeah, you’ll be on first name basis until you start acting like my dad. Sound fair?” She shook her head, though it wasn’t it answer to his question at all, and followed him. “You know, she didn’t teach me how to milk a cow. Her thing was more murder and inflicting fear on the masses. You know, psychopath things.” Maybe it was unfair of her, to be so angry at him for things done by her mother. Maybe. Or maybe it was fair because he had left her there, because he had hardly bothered to check on her, because he was showing this horse more compassion than he had ever dared to show her.

“Yeah, Bill fits him. Did you name him or did Rod?” Or Nolyn, or Eden. God, how had Ytel managed to wiggle his way into this family? The truth was, she wasn’t only concerned for herself with him being present. And she was concerned for herself, she was scared that she would let herself depend on him only for him to vanish again, just like always. But she was worried for Luci; her son had already suffered so much loss. There was more too because Nolyn had been there for her in ways that no one else ever had or would. Thus his family was her family, even Mallory who she had yet to meet at all, and she would be damned if she let her father let any of them down, especially little Eden.

It was so weird, so eery, standing here exchanging pleasantries with this man. Oh, it wasn’t that he had never been around at all, or that he hadn’t cared in the least. He had shown up now and again, had remembered a few birthdays (though she was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to cite to her right now), and had never wanted to forget her altogether (that she could prove). But he had left her under the control of a psychopath, had let her feel responsible for reigning in her crazy mother, and had, in the end, allowed that to lead to her being put in a position where she had shot her mother in the line of duty. Crazy or not, evil or not, she was the only family that Delia had ever had consistently until Luci and his father. The thought brought a pang to her heart that she couldn’t quite help.  

cordeliasturmer‌:

@nolynbarrett

Cordelia stretched out on her chair on the porch of the Barrett farmhouse, resting a foot on the railing before crossing her other leg over that one. “God I can’t believe you guys hired my dad. Careful with him. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him, and I can’t throw him.” She reached out to pet the adorable Australian Shepherd curled up on the porch between their chairs with one hand, the other holding a beer in her lap. She glanced at her old partner before looking back out at the scenery. “This town is pretty damn pretty. Not that New Orleans isn’t, but I think I was ready for a change. Poor Luci probably was more than ready for it.” Hell, poor Lucien had lost his father in the same city, and he had been so young. Too young. Benjamin had been a real father for him too, not like the sorry excuse that she had had herself. Ben had been good, and kind, and patient. He’d been the kind of father that would sit and do homework with his kid for hours if needed.

“Can’t you throw him with the earth abilities?” he quipped back easily enough, bringing her a lemonade he’d made the day before with Eden. It was slightly sweet for his taste, but he’d watered down the glasses before offering it to Delia. “Sorry, I went to use the restroom and Eden begged me to let you taste her lemonade. Alcoholic Arnold Palmer, anyone?” he chuckled, placing the beverage on the small circular glass table between the chairs. “Maybe he’s turned a new leaf, Delia. Rod seems to really like him” – Rod took care of most of the ranch, since he worked on the grounds whereas Nol worked on the campus of the college – “and I trust my brother. Quite a bit, actually. You’d like him.” 

He took a sip of the lemonade and peered in the window where his daughter was sitting at the counter (step-stool nearby, of course), eyes anywhere but the coloring book in front of her. Basically, eyes out the window, looking to her father. He gave a smile and a thumbs up, and she pointed to the blonde-haired woman next to him. He poured some of his beer into his glass and could’ve sworn he heard an audible gasp come from inside the home. “Good things come to those that wait,” he misquoted after Delia spoke. “Luci is very patient, and you had a good, steady job. Its okay that you didn’t leave sooner. He had stability there, even if you were his only family for a couple decades.” He said it without malice or judgment, just matter-of-factly because it was the truth. “Does he still do computer stuff, or were there no openings in town for him? I can’t imagine this town having openings anywhere, everyone is so rooted. I dunno, but as you said, N’Orleans was a very different environment. Much more vibrant, though the greenery here is gorgeous as well.”

“I could,” Delia said consideringly. “But I do remember someone always telling me not to be a hothead. And I have to wonder who that was.... Oh, wait, I think it was you.” She took a sip of her goddaughter’s lemonade, giving a small nod and a soft smile. “Tell her that it’s absolutely wonderful and I’ll be over every day for more until she’s sick of me. Ah, fuck it. I’ll tell her myself.” God she loved that kid, but everyone seemed to love that kid. She was just a genuinely good child. She bit down on her lip and shook her head slowly. “It isn’t your brother I distrust here,” she told him, looking at him with a wry expression on her face.

She followed his gaze into the window, a smile pulling over her face. “God, she’s a beautiful little girl, Nolyn. She really is.” She took a drink from her own lemonade as she watched the small girl look at her father in shock. “How dare you ruin her lemonade? You have no morals, zip, nada, none.” She glanced inside again to make sure the girl wasn’t looking before lowering her glass out of sight and following suit quickly. “Yeah, no, you’re right.” She hummed lightly as she took another drink, this one rich with the bitter taste of alcohol melted with sugar. “He’s still job hunting. I’m hoping something will open up for him in his field but one thing at a time.”

Cordelia stretched out on her chair on the porch of the Barrett farmhouse, resting a foot on the railing before crossing her other leg over that one. “God I can’t believe you guys hired my dad. Careful with him. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him, and I can’t throw him.” She reached out to pet the adorable Australian Shepherd curled up on the porch between their chairs with one hand, the other holding a beer in her lap. She glanced at her old partner before looking back out at the scenery. “This town is pretty damn pretty. Not that New Orleans isn’t, but I think I was ready for a change. Poor Luci probably was more than ready for it.” Hell, poor Lucien had lost his father in the same city, and he had been so young. Too young. Benjamin had been a real father for him too, not like the sorry excuse that she had had herself. Ben had been good, and kind, and patient. He’d been the kind of father that would sit and do homework with his kid for hours if needed.

With his messenger bag hanging from his shoulder and his earbuds plugged into his ears, David was walking through the town after leaving work. His hands still had some specks of colors due to the art project he’d worked on with the kids today. Pressing pause to his music and taking off his earbuds, he called out “Hey, you dropped this” as he rushed towards the person on the sidewalk. Holding up a $20 bill, the nymph smiled as he handed it back.

Cordelia turned, smiling at her cousin as she reached out, easily wrapping her fingers back around his and pushing it towards him. “Keep it, don’t worry about it.” It was strange, to know she had a cousin when she hadn’t even known her aunt until very recently. David seemed steady, like family she could actually rely on. That was foreign to her. Her father had been absent, her mother... Well, she would have been better off if her mother had been absent. “Hey, wanna go to the house and have a bite to eat? Some tea, maybe?”