in it for the long game

But she smiles, thoughts drifting elsewhere for only a few short-cropped seconds before she runs fingers over soft lines and curves and lets their dark eyes focus in on each other. Her smile is wide. "We have so much to talk about," she says. "I don't know where to start."

Because she doesn't, she realizes, as she searches the beautiful woman's face. Tressa can name every member of Pretorius. Every important vampire from every other vampire clan in this city, and even some outside of its bounds. She can recount each and every case of death with which she's dealt in the last year.

But the girl with whom she shares a ring? Those memories had been so rooted, so tightly grasped. And now, seeing her here, in the flesh, who could blame her for clutching them so?

Another kiss punctuates Tressa's words, and she can't believe how much she'd missed the cool touch of her skin. "Yeah, I bet so." She looks down to the ring on her hand, twirling it as she'd done so many times when she'd run into a puzzle with her family. She takes Tressa's hand in her own and runs her thumb across her knuckles.

Magic connected to the earth with ease, the Earth mending itself and bringing the street light back to its initial positioning, roots grasping around metal under the pavement to hold it in place should it try to uproot itself once more.

What in the actual fuck.

Whipping her head over to the man, her face twists up in bewilderment. Just leave? Get to shelter? "Are - you're just okay with this?!" She gestures wildly towards it, as it tries to uproot itself once more. There was nothing familiar about him, but the magic told her that he wasn't a part of her coven.

The city outside has descended into chaos, though, but not here. Embrace is cool as a cucumber, even here in the dark, where Tressa lounges in her dark office, feet on her desk, reading by cande-light on account of the power.

The call of her name spooks her, and she looks up from the book in her hand, leaning to crane her head and see through the office door, down the hall.

"Estela?!"

Hands on her shoulders, she greets her with a kiss - something she's longed to do from the moment they'd parted ways at the airport. The taste of her is exactly as she remembered it, but she doesn't push for much more than a simple greeting.

"I wasn't talking about magic." She says, and she's pretty sure her cheeks are flushiing with stolen blood as she says it. "-Sorry, I just... I think you are very very pretty tonight. Not that you're never not pretty. Beautiful, I guess. Pretty sounds so childish. You're very beautiful."

So her eyebrows raise up in surprise and she feels her own cheeks heating up at the compliment. "Thank you, Tressa." She means it so sincerely. Lifting her hands, she cups Tressa's cheeks and pulls her in for a quick kiss to the lips - maybe to stop her from rambling more, maybe to just show affection.

"I'll make my rounds, we presumably have all night. There's some drama at play that I have to notify a couple people of, and a few faces that are familiar and who absolutely shouldn't be here."

where: The Conclave Gala, Outside Gardens

She needs them to know, even if the timing isn’t great. The three of them stand like some unholy trinity in the narrow garden just beyond the ballroom lights—Caitlin centered between Mara and Estela. Cigarette smoke wafts over from the patio, threading ghost-grey ribbons through trimmed boxwoods.

With a sharp flick of her wrist, Cait draws on the new current that runs straight from Tenebris, and a veil of violet witch-light snaps over their heads like blown glass. Sound compresses, air thickens, the ward vibrating with a deeper resonance than anything she could cast a week ago. Can they feel it? That she’s something new?

“Thank you for watching the coven while I was away,” she says, meeting their eyes one by one. A crooked half-smile tugs at her mouth—equal parts gratitude and apology. “If anything had blown up, I’d have hauled myself back in a body bag. That would’ve really killed the vibe.”

Estela watches Caitlin flex her magic - notes how it feels. Different. She can't quite place it, but the energy thrums in the air and tickles along her skin in a way that reminds her of the way she feels when she sees a disturbed ant pile. Some sort of primordial discomfort, chills that go up to her face. It doesn't last very long, and she quickly gets used to it, despite the odd feeling.

She glances towards Mara, a slight laugh on her lips at Caitlin's joke. "That would have been a hassle for me, specifically, Siltshore, and you know it." Her fingers tap along her forearm, and her gaze shifts back up to the witch light above them.

It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t to blame for trying something dangerous like reaching into the dark, for a man she barely knew, and coming up empty. It wasn’t even a failure, not really. Maybe it was just him. Maybe the thing in his blood had dug too deep. Maybe the curse had devoured him, swallowed him down in pieces and spat out whatever was left. It had replaced parts of him; memories, instincts, hope with cold, hollow voids that throbbed whenever someone tried to reach inside. Estela was brave for trying, but what if there was nothing left but rot?

Still, disappointment twisted into something else — concern, then a flicker of something like hope. The kind a dying man cradled at the end of the road. Hope, not for a cure, but a little more time.

There isn't a quick one. Magic shouldn't be quick unless you're willing to risk irreversible damage. You have to study. To take time. To bend with the flow, instead of creak and snap.

She swallows, looks back up again.

They would have been so different back then. Cait doesn’t think they would’ve even seen each other in high school, let alone sat next to each other. She would’ve been the girl in the back row with ink-stained fingers and a chipped nail polish pentagram on her binder, muttering spells into a thermos and daring the substitute to ask what was in it. And Estela? Probably someone else's orbit entirely.

They existed in different hallways, different lunch tables, different worlds. And yet here they were now, stitched into the same room. 

Do you have something in mind? Of course she does. Several things. One in particular.

“Let’s start simple,” she says, already half-turning toward the kitchen. “What are the limitations of your siphon? How far can it stretch? Do you feel tired after using it? What about muscle degradation, arcane residue, feedback loops? How’s your body handling it?”

She busies herself while the questions hang. The kettle hisses softly, ready to scald. Cait opens a cupboard that’s a witch’s apothecary of loose-leaf: rose, lavender, something dark that smells like storms. “You a tea drinker?” she tosses over her shoulder. “I’ve got basically everything.”

Clearing her throat, she holds out her hand palm up as if showing her-- "It's by touch only. I haven't been able to experiment with absorbing excessive amounts that would cause issue. I only take a bit here and there. I fear that.. if I were to take from another creature, it would kill them. So I only do bits and pieces."

She has theories about siphoning from vampires, but none about werewolves. However, she can mention Matteo.. offhand. "I've reached out to someone who's been cursed on behalf of my family, and I've found I can slowly remove it. Bits and pieces - if I can find the heart or the seed, depending on the depths of the curse. There was a slight side effect in that it turned my fingers black and rotting, but it faded within seconds. I don't know much more than that."

So she appreciates it, hearing Estela. It's a really pleasant last thing to hear, if that's the case. And then she realizes that she just told Estela about the short story where they kiss and realizes that no, that was a horrible idea, she should have just been straightforward, that can't be where their story ends.

Tressa's head jerks forwards as the blood pours out of Estela's wrist and drains down past her lips, past her teeth, absorbs into her graying flesh, replenishing it. The spark of vampirism flares like an ember touched by gasoline then, and she reflexively grasps at the slender wrist, lapping at the wound. It's... the best thing she's ever had in her life, indescribably delicious; like a flavor she's always dreamt of and never been able to describe. Her eyes flood with dark red, and then screw shut as she takes her fill, before her eyes snap open and turn up, studying Estela's face and reminding her, in that moment, what they're doing her, and she forces herself to let go, to roll over and away and off the slab, whatever, as long as it puts something between she and Estela, where she thuds to the floor. "Augh! Auuuugh god that was NUTS."

Still bleeding, she reaches down into the basin to pick up the gemstone to slide it across -- and immediately goes to bandage her wrist lest she bleed all over the sterile surfaces.

"I believe so. And yes, I'm okay." She offers a soft smile, "All that's left is to set the stone into something you can wear and test it out." She steps forward - around the table to meet her - then rests her forehead against Tressa's.

Which is wild because she doesn't really give a lot of thought to souls.

If souls are real, does she even still have one? Is that what 'Stel is ripping out of her? If so, remarkablly painful. She'll make note of it if she's alive to do so. Maybe on a paper pad on a sunny morning, if this all works.

It kind of feels like it won't, and when Estela's again pulling on the threads of whatever magic that lets her walk and talk and live, it feels like too much, the way her fangs start to tense in her gums, and she feels her body pulling blood into parts of her that are telling her to feed. Her eyes are a deep red-brown, sockets bruising with blood before even that drains away, and she feels, for the first time, like maybe control isn't a choice here. because there's so much blood inside Estela that she could just have, blood that is now chock full of some unique radical; she's smelled magic before now, but not like this.

Pallid and hollowing out, she's forcing herself to lie down, instead. "Think I'm dying, just so you know. It's kind of peaceful. Painful, but you know..."

When she's done the stone lay in the basin, looking like hardened silk in the shape of an oval.

The spell stops and Estela feels drained. She picks up the stone and goes to hand it to Tressa, "Oh.. fuck." She'd heard what she'd said but she was so one with the magic that it barely registered until after she finished the ritual.

She asks him what she wants and all he wants is for her to tell him where the line is so he can decide how close he wants to get.

But he rolls his shoulders, leans back against the counter, casual but not careless. "I've got a thing against my old folks and I'm looking for some help, is all. And if there's an opportunity to scratch your back..." he makes a little mock-toast gesture through the air after picking his glass back up. "But hey, now and here isn't exactly the best time and place to discuss, so if you need time to think it over, I'm sure I can be patient." A beat, he gives her a sideways glance. "If not, no worries. I'll still let you zap me," with a wink and all.

It's something to think about, to be sure, but she wonders if that means she has to be allied with Harford and only Harford. With the way treaty lines are drawn, if something is broken, then where does that put her? Garnett is well and good, but she's not sure she has any loyalty to any of them except Caitlin. Her family has shoved her into little boxes, and she can't remember the last time she's talked to any of her fellow coven members other than in passing.

But she'd rather throw her lot in with them.

She's quiet for too long while she thinks, and offers Avi a squint and a smile. "Could be a potentiality, Avi. But you know us witches - we don't like to have all of our eggs in one basket. I'll come to you later, we can chat."

“I know they do,” she says, voice gentler than usual. “They always have. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Tell someone the rules of the game, then change the board as soon as they start to win.”

Her gaze drops to the outstretched hand, to the lines of the palm, the slight shimmer of promise just under the skin. “You’re right. It’s no different. But they want it to be. Because if it’s different, they get to decide how dangerous you are. If it’s the same, they have to admit you’re better.”

Cait crosses the room, reaching for a kettle, letting the mundane action settle between them. “Don’t let them shame you for needing a source. Magic has always needed something. The body’s just one way in.”

Then, a sidelong glance. Sharper, this time. Affection edged in challenge. "The real question is, have you done anything fun with it?"

Despite her handicap, she knows what to do, but the how to execute needs practice. Her fingertips rub together as she thinks about it. Her own mother had berated her for being an abomination, from trying to pull magic from family members to craft the perfect charm to have a pendant to pull from - rechargeable under circumstances she hasn't quite figured out yet.

Those scratches in notebooks are unfinished, lost to time and buried under notes for funeral services.

"That's.." She hums. "Not since high school. Do you have something in mind?"

Still, that's how it's done. It's more for Estela's cleanliness and benefit anyways. She takes a deep breath which does zero work for her nerves, because those are magical, dead nerves now too. She's running through checklists in her mind, too. Because if something happens and she dies then it's all on Estela to run this thing and she really wants to give her the best shot possible if that-

"Wait did you just call me babe?"

Stel's fingertips touch her skin, and her jaw and her cheek and taps her forehead to Tressa's and there's this moment where she feels quite fully disarmed, like there's a word lodged in her throat. She's been thinking a lot of futures. Both the one in front of her (short or long, doesn't matter) and the one she'd seen at the Khaos club. She wonders, then, if the Tressa of that timeline, if it was a different Tressa and not just a her that exists in some sort of asynchronous time loop, feels the same kind of burgeoning feelings that she feels for E-

"Ow, oh, that does burn." She says, and her eyes look directly into Estelas when they open and she wonders at how deep they look, like she could fall into them, if, you know, they weren't just eyes. "Fascinating."

It's like a sizzling that she feels, both where she's being touched and then, through a line, like a wire, that connects somewhere in the core of her - she feels... tired. Not blood loss tired, but like, the kind of tired you feel when you've spent the day with people at their lowest point, at their most uncertain. The kind of tired when you feel your soul shrink a little. She's felt it before, and it's had so little to do with magic that the comparison really strikes her.

"Ouf... wha.. whatever you need." Oh, that's the bloodloss tired.

She tries to focus on the type of magic it is, what it feels like to wield it. The stores in her system feel like they're draining by the second, but what she can focus on, what she can feel. It's not like the earthy feeling of werewolves. The magic from vampires is like the feeling she gets from Siltshore, how it feels to be surrounded by death and decay and rot. It's comforting in a different way. This magic is what she was meant to wield.

The spell itself doesn't feel like molding something, it feels like ripping apart the natural way of things -- she's tearing through reality, pressing her fingers into the fabric of the universe and peeling it back, fingernails ripping and tearing strand by strand.