Nova Aurelia de León

felix was not in the mood for semantics, however, much easier to shift all the mornings annoyance onto this one moment and this one woman. his pale eyes held a quite fury, lips pursing as he tried hard to properly dampen his annoyance into a simmer or perhaps...nothing at all.

"i don't need your rationalization," was his snippy reply, immediately bending down to collect what he could. "either help me or leave,"

Her intuition told him that there was more to this man than just his angry front, and so slowly, quietly, she knelt, slender fingers beginning to reach for the various papers that were scattered about on the ground, threatening to blow away. There was no way they would be able to recover everything that he had dropped but she could only hope that he didn’t work exclusively from paper, and that his precious materials were saved on a computer somewhere. She didn’t speak, instead stacking the various papers she could grab and shuffling them into a neat pile, handing them delicately back to him as her brown eyes met his once more.

After the fog had lifted, Naz had felt the urge to be in water growing stronger each day. It had been bad before but it felt worse recently, like she was going to go mad if she didn't soak in the bath or at the pools a few times a day. Before her shift at the country club started, she knew she had to go and get a proper swim in. She arrived around lunch time before diving into the water, letting her tail extend out and splash under the water.

It was funny to think that she never liked the ocean when she was younger. She was terrified of what was lurking under the surface. Now she had become the thing she should be afraid off. The siren got lost in her thoughts and didn't notice someone else nearby. She dived under the water and came up, almost face to face with a beautiful woman. A squeak escaped her parted lips, a hand coming to rest against her heart.

"Good lord, I'm so sorry I just screamed at you," Naz said, quickly apologising. "I didn't see you there."

She’d dressed in a simple kaftan with no swimming costume underneath, hoping that the pools would be empty given that it was a working week day - that way she could just drop the kaftan and jump in without ruining yet another bikini. The coast seemed clear after a quick glance to either side, and so she dropped the thin cotton garment to the ground, diving into the cool water. Immediately her legs morphed into her glittering tail, the healing water soothing her siren soul as she swam beneath it.

She rose silently, head breaking the surface as silently as a killer whale’s would- and then just a moment later a woman she’d never seen before was right in front of her, clearly just as shocked by Nova’s presence as Nova was by hers. Nova jumped, hand splashing at the water slightly as her eyes widened and then softened as she saw the fellow siren was no threat. “Don’t be, don’t be,” she chuckled weakly. “Sorry - I don’t I’ve seen you round here before. I’m Nova.”

“I can imagine,” he said sympathetically. Although Asher couldn’t empathise - plenty of summer vacations and swimming teachers had made certain he was comfortable in the water long before he had hit puberty - he could certainly try to imagine what it had been like. After all, putting oneself in the shoes of others was an important exercise in learning how to be a decent person, and he felt immortality surely only gave him more time to work on himself.

“I guess it would’ve been harder,” he acknowledged, “if you were scared of the ocean. I always liked swimming. Guess it wasn’t such a big change for me,” and Asher had always been the type to be out in nature anyway, always enjoying the wild, so it hadn’t really been such a shift for him to suddenly have the need to do so rather than just the desire. “Two years ago, now,” he responded politely, unbothered by the question. “You?”

It was this renewed zest for life which had prompted her out of bed early this morning. Lucas was staying at Roman's that night, and Nova had decided to cook Juan-Diego and romantic dinner to thank him for all he had done for her after the last few months. The mist had brought them closer together - Nova hadn't had the energy to put up any sort of fight when JD had wanted to help, and subsequently he had seen her in some pretty horrible states. But through it all, he had been patient and kind, and she loved him more than she had ever thought possible.

A paper bag filled with ingredients tucked under arm, she bustled out of the shop, colliding almost immediately with a red-headed man, causing his bag and papers to drop, ink from his pens puddling the few sheets that hadn't blown away. "Oh gosh I'm so-" she began, but her attempted apology was cut short by his biting words. "I'm sorry, but it was merely an accident," she responded slowly, eyes narrowing as she looked over at him coldly. "We are both equally to blame."

A cacophony of chimes sound from the the front door once someone steps through. Attention immediately shifts towards the newcomer, he finishes off his mouthful in a hurry. “Hey, how’s it..” Words stop abruptly as a gulp of water's taken. Sure, it was poorly timed, but he needed to wet the pipes after choking down the spiciest food experiment known to mankind. 

She’d decided to take a half-day at work after a particularly late night the previous night trying to figure out a case for one of her new clients, and so she had time to kill before she needed to collect Lucas from school. The perfect opportunity for a solo lunch. “Hey! Nice place you’ve got here,” she smiled, the soft click of her heels announcing her entrance as she made her way over to the bar, slipping into the seat he gestured at. “Oh I love spice, you can try it out on me if you want! I’ll eat just about anything, especially if I didn’t have to cook it,” she chuckled softly. “Ah- I’ll have a margarita please. Spicy if you can.”

Helen had been feeling both happy and sad the past few days. Every since finding herself in the new apartment she had been ecstatic to live in a place where light could come through in the rooms outside of the bedroom, having previously been enclosed in a basement apartment where all was one room and all windows were painted over. She could see woods from the small window of the bathroom at the back of the building and what seemed like a hospital’s sign at the front. She enjoyed being able to walk outside in the day and be trusted enough to do so, which was such a lovely change it made her heart swell with… love.

But she was also sad, because she was unsure as to where exactly she was, a phone not something she had access to in recent times, so she couldn’t log online or even try to call her mom. Being closer to nature she started missing her mother, but this was quickly forgotten as a key was placed in her hand close to dusk. Alexander gave her a kiss on the cheek and announced he will go outside, meeting old friends she was not presentable enough now to meet. She smiled without any protest. “I will go buy us coffee and walk for an hour… and come home” she promised, checking her watch, before walking in the opposite direction of him and letting her eyes wander around, enjoying the fresh air. The sun had gone down on queue as they had walked outside. 

Her gaze had frozen on a strange shop which looked as if it were selling various herbs and items. She wondered if she could name the plants but most seemed foreign and her muddled mined was only more confused. She hadn’t realized how long she had stood there until she felt a gaze on herself and her initial thought was that there was a person behind the glass on the inside that was judging her lingering. She felt some color filling her cheeks and erasing the pale complexion she had since meeting Alexander. 

She pushed hands to her sides, pulling her T-shirt, a few sizes too big, down and holding onto it with white knuckles as she wondered where to she could go. Looking down at her hand, still holding onto the fabric, she glanced at the wristwatch and saw she had wasted twenty minutes on this. A frown crept on her brow and she pursed her lips, walking faster. In fact, so fast and while looking around for a possible shop, that her shoulder hit with too strong a force someone else’s body as she was walking past them. A rain of sorrys poured out of her lips as she felt her heart slow to almost a dead crawl before speeding up and flying too fast. 

Her refusal to offer details of her work was somewhat of a blow to Balveer, feeling a metaphorical door of opportunity essentially being closed in his face. However, he took it in his stride and decided to work on it less obviously. He put his hands up to gesticulate his apology for overstepping the mark. "Yes, of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I just find it interesting. Love a good true crime doc, just. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, that was really stupid of me."

Glad of the change in topic, he offered what he could by way of an explanatory story. "I grew up in institutions," he began, making no effort to expand on exactly where or why. "When I was a kid, we only got food at certain times and if you were hungry outside of those times, it was too bad. So, I used to hoard everything I could under my bed. When they found it, they called me a dirty raccoon." he sighed, clearly still bothered by this series of events. " I don't want any more kids to have to be raccoons." A touching story, though completely fabricated. His real affiliation with the animal having come from his ability to steal anything and everything, much like the banditry such rodents were infamous for. "When we got older, we were given little jobs and I helped out in the kitchen, so, it's all I know, really." Whilst technically true, this apprenticeship had taken place in prison, rather than the care system he'd initially been referring to. "So, the raccoon is the chef, so now nobody has to worry about scavenging food. He does it for them."

Nova wasn’t sure how sincere his apology was but he was quick to offer it, and so in return she was quick to accept it, shaking her head as she offered him a reassuring wave of her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Many people have similar questions. If it’s any consolation, I don’t even talk to my closest friends about it. I can understand the fascination though - I love a good true crime documentary myself,” she chuckled. 

Not wanting to press him for any information he wasn’t interested in sharing she simply creased her brow as she listened, nodding along slowly. Even though she didn’t had her normal power, unable to tell for sure whether her hunch was right, something about the story didn’t sit right with her. Perhaps it was the way he found it so easy to share, or the almost practiced way he perfectly punctuated the story with a sad little sigh. Whatever it was, Nova wasn’t about to start making accusations, and so she simply hummed along as he spoke to indicate she was listening. “That’s- that’s a very touching story,” she murmured, smiling a little, although her gaze was calculating as she continued to look over at him. 

"So, local, simple work. That's what you're about now? What's that involve then, petty stuff? Vandalism, jaywalking, shoplifting?" he let the question linger as he finished talking, hoping she'd pick up before he'd fully finished. It was a reasonably quiet town from what he'd seen so far, and that usually just meant that any shady dealings were usually just kept under-wraps more so than in a big city. People knew each other's faces, but perhaps not their full stories.

"Yeah, it's a funny business to get into." he commented, knowing that opening a local business wasn't always the smartest idea when everyone's bills were rising or towns were flooding with mysterious fogs. "But, it's all I've ever done, so, I think I'd struggle to find success anywhere else." He smiled as she admired his menu, genuinely proud of his work and glad someone else was receiving it positively. "I mean it, bring the boy round sometime. I'll throw in a free dessert if he tries out some stuff I've been working on. Trying to make healthy dinners that kids actually like is a lot harder than it's given credit for. I've actually bought a cookie cutter to cook potatoes into shapes to help kids eat them, maybe make the little guy some kind of mascot." he tapped on the raccoon that adorned the menu. It was generic clip art, but, the idea behind it was sentimental.

A slight sense of unease crept up in the back of brain as he continued to question her about what kind of cases she was involved with. Usually strangers didn’t ask such specific questions, and he rattled off the various crimes with such ease that she couldn’t help but narrow her eyes in suspicion for just a moment. Perhaps it was that she spent so much time around people who lied for a living that she was overly suspicious, sometimes to the point of paranoia. And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling, eyes scanning his face for a moment before she answered. “Ah. It’s best if I don’t discuss my work in that detail. For the sake of my clients,” she nodded slowly.

STARTER FOR: @nova-aurelia-deleon​ LOCATION: Coffee Shop STATUS: CLOSED

Juan Diego would lie if he said he wasn’t nervous, he wanted Lucas to like him, but also didn’t want to push things and make him feel like he was there to supersede his dad, because he knew that would create big rejection, especially when he was just meeting his dad and getting to spend time with him. The witch was very conflicted, because deep down he wished that Lucas would see him as his dad, he wanted to be a part of their family, yet he was very aware that it might never happened, that Lucas could just look at him as his mother’s boyfriend and that was it, and that was the reality of their dynamic, at least for now.

He looked at his watch knowing that he had arrived a bit too early but luckily, they were going to be arriving soon, he started to play with the napkin folding over and over until it transformed into some origami form. When he saw the coming, he got up and smile widely and content to see them, knowing just how big this was not just for him but for Nova too and how especial this moment was.

After a long conversation and lots of questions from her son, he seemed to understand. His mother was in love, and wanted her son to meet the man who had won her heart. They arrange to have brunch with JD at a local cafe, Nova wanting the first meeting to happen somewhere neutral outside their home so that Lucas didn’t feel like his space was being invaded. He seemed a little nervous but also excited - Nova had told him all about JD and had promised him that they would get along. With a hand on his back she lead him into the cafe, eyes finding JD’s immediately as she smiled over at him, heading in his direction. A quick kiss was pressed to his cheek before she looked down at her son. “Lucas, this is Juan-Diego,” she smiled a little nervously, watching as the young boy offered his hand to the older man. “Hi Juan-Diego. It’s nice to meet you,” he said politely, offering him a small, shy smile.

"Yeah, a couple weeks." he repeated, nodding his head. "I think we're still in the honeymoon period, people checking us out because we're new. But, I'm willing to put the work in and see where I end up." With questions about the menu, he felt it was best to show and tell. He lifted a menu from the table he was sat at and gently pushed it towards her with his index finger. "Times are hard. So, I focus on inexpensive, nutritious food. Not everybody needs fancy, but, everybody needs food." The menu was simplistic in nature, offering simple but filling ingredients. A small cartoon of a raccoon with a knife and fork decorated the lower portion of the menu.

“Yeah, gosh, I guess you won’t really know where it all will land until you’ve been around a few months. But I don’t see how you could fail - people are always looking for somewhere relaxed and affordable to eat,” she hummed, sincerity in her words. She took the menu with delicate fingers, brown eyes scanning over the offerings. “Gosh - I’d have trouble choosing. It all looks good,” she smiled. 

Lucas nodded slowly at Roman’s words however, leaning up to peck Nova on the cheek. “I thought maybe - you would see each other again and fall in love…? But it’s okay if not. Some of friends at school, their parents don’t live together either and they’re okay,” he nodded. Nova smiled down at him, kissing his temple. “Even if your dad and I aren’t together, us three are still a family sweetheart. We’re gonna work really hard to make sure you don’t ever forget that, okay?”

“Exactly what your mother said, we are still a family and your mother and I do love each other very much.  “And we are so lucky to be your parents, because Ace…I gotta tell you.  You’re amazing.”  And he meant those words, everytime he was with Lucas he fell more and more in love with the kid.  He was so full of wonder and life and it just lifted his spirits every time.  “We probably should finish up, the curfew is still in place.  But I got your room almost done at my place,” he smiled.

Roman nodded at her words, he hoped the twelve year old could wrap his head around it.  Because it was hard, the three of them were their own little family in many ways.  But the family was growing, soon Lucas would meet his other siblings and Nova was seeing someone that could potentially go somewhere.  “All that matters kiddo is that you know that your mother and I love you very much.  And we will always do what is right by you.”

Lucas nodded slowly at Roman’s words however, leaning up to peck Nova on the cheek. “I thought maybe - you would see each other again and fall in love…? But it’s okay if not. Some of friends at school, their parents don’t live together either and they’re okay,” he nodded. Nova smiled down at him, kissing his temple. “Even if your dad and I aren’t together, us three are still a family sweetheart. We’re gonna work really hard to make sure you don’t ever forget that, okay?”