koroleva

Aries spent too much time at the bookstore.

Even on his off days, he would come down to the store and plop himself down to read something about dark magic. Humans tended to be skeptical while in the shop so he rarely hid himself from view with the large tomes spread out on the table in front of him. Today he sat at the front of the store, two large, leatherbound books lying closed in front of him. He had settled in with a full cup of coffee a little over twenty minutes ago but he’d yet to finish the cup or even look at the books. He was much too interested in the person walking up to the bookstore to worry about magic, even if for just a fleeting second.

Ophelia was curious. Despite the gems the Durand Bookstore held, she tended to avoid it. She tended to avoid most places owned by other supernaturals unless she had to. It was unfortunate though. This specific store was an interesting one. Which was why she finally bit the bullet and decided to bite the bullet and hope for the best. She soon realised that perhaps this was a bad idea when she saw the young male watching her. One inside, she stopped next to his table. “Just here for a look.” Following a brief pause, she moved again to browse the many, many beautiful books. All the while, acutely aware of the other.

@opxliaelv.

“ i don’t have muffins. ” what he does have: charms, and lots of them. he didn’t even mean to make them, simply channeling too hard while going around his apartment and enchanting things. some of them were nasty, but he managed to grab a few of the nicer ones to bring along to ophelia. still, he makes the admission with shame in his voice. his magic’s felt out of control, knowing he wasn’t able to help the people he should’ve been. though, it’s not as if ophelia could’ve been in danger — she felt too permanent for that. he didn’t want to be wrong about it by jinxing it. he sighed and set the charms down, though they were bobby pins at the moment. “ i’m realizing i don’t know how you take your tea either. tea feels … right, don’t you think ? ” something he associated with home, family, safety. a cup of breathing easy. like he didn’t curse his roommate’s succulent by mistake before he left.

@opxliaelv

Tonight was not his best night, and his reactions were fickle at best when it came to the surprises of the evening. Winter had detached herself from his side to go tend to something or perhaps refill her drink. He hadn’t played fifty questions with her when she left. Instead his mind still tried to process everything that had hit him at once.  With his eyes locked onto the crowd he made a silent game of painting targets on the back of people’s heads. After the gala at least some weren’t off the plate to snipe.

Then came his new company, which caused him to turn his head. He hadn’t felt like it was Winter, but he had to be sure. Once he met the eyes of Ophelia he paused and let out a longing sigh. Of course she was here. This wasn’t a turn of events to shock him, but he still wasn’t really prepared for it.

“Ophelia.” He addressed her simply, “What do you want?” Lukas was never one to dance around the subject.

Ophelia was not okay. Not okay at all with the fact that her youngest child’s date was bloody Lukas Leon of all people. The idea of it made her heart tense up in worry and well, anger. How could Winter be so reckless as to have a hunter has her date? A hunter whose dad would have tried to lop Ophelia’s head of years ago if it weren’t for the rules.She was aware f the fact but perhaps she was being a little too paranoid. Perhaps he wasn’t like his father. However Ophelia could not live a life as long as she had, without being at least a little paranoid.

So of course, she decided to speak to him the first moment she could.

“The truth. About why you’re going with my daughter. You can’t expect me to think it’s completely innocent.”

       After his last interaction with Ophelia, Cassius had kept his distance from the fae, mostly because he knew he would be seeing her either way at the gala. He felt terrible for what happened to her, and wished there was more he could do – but her demands were precarious, and it wasn’t anything he alone could change. Still, he missed his friend. So he was glad when the two found themselves nearby, Ophelia easily spoke to him. Her question made him smile.    “ It’s too soon to tell, I’d say. You ? “ 

Ophelia had never been very good at burying the hatchet. Even when it came to Cassius, she simply decided to pretend like she had. After all, how could anything change if she ruined the one good relationship with a founding family member that she had. If you asked her, it was simply business. It was another thing she wasn’t very good, admitting her care for others. “I quite agree. I’m fairly certain though that it won’t beat 1921. It’s not bad though, considering.”

It was exciting seeing everyone in one place. she’d not been around so many people in a long time. Some of these people she’d never seen before, they were all from the mainland and away from Staten Island. There were too few times that she was able to see people like this. Winter had gone all out for this, her outfit, makeup and hair. She’d spent so much time on it, and had gotten looks so far. Looks she hoped were for the outfit and now just because she was a fae. 

“Are these always like this?” When she finally spotted her mother she went over to her, trying to not use her wings to fly over. There were humans here and she had to be careful, she’d been told that a dozen times. “I’ve never met some of these people.” Maybe if she kept talking she’d distract her from commenting on her choice of company for the gala. @opxliaelv

Ophelia, in many ways, was regretting letting Winter come along. Realistically, she knew that there was no way she could stop her (well, she could, but then she’d be a real bitch), but she couldn’t stop the wishing. Winter’s choice of date had much to do with that. In her eyes, Winter was still a child. At only eighty-seven years old, she was still quite naive. In Ophelia’s eyes at least. To be fair, the fact that her date was Jasper’s son didn’t feel right. How could it? He was a Leon.

“Similar. This is the first time it’s been opened to a wider audience, so it’s... interesting.” The  older’s fae’s eyes landed on her daughter. “How’s this... date of yours treating you?” It felt like poison on her tongue that word.

“ i just decided to take a break… from dancing , “ judith explained. half taking a break from dancing with her friends and half trying to take a breath after her family drama. she pushes the stray curls behind her ears. “ you can sit if you’d like. “ 

@opxliaelv

@opxliaelv

She’s been a bit off the map with the Godfrey’s, a bit of a black sheep, so it should be no surprise to her when some of the basic founding family information slips past her. She knows of Ophelia, but it’s only when she sees her face at the Gala does she make the connection with the woman she had a chance encounter with the other night.  

< Well, well, well. If it isn’t the fae from the pool. >

The voice in her head is certainly fascinated with her and Cait’s been a bit of a slave the voice since the Strawberry Moon. 

“Enjoying the evening?” Caitlin asks as she approaches the other. Her words betray some caution. Her magic - it grows strange around this one. “Caitlin Godfrey.” She reminds her. “We had the encounter at the pool…?” 

Ophelia’s wine glass sat delicately in her hand, almost empty, as she surveyed the room. It was hard to relax in an environment such as this, where the families of so many hear had done her and her kind wrong. At this point in her life, she was quite good and putting on a smile and being done with it. A smile however, did not change the tight feeling in her chest.

A woman’s voice breaks through the music in her head and she turned her attention to it, only to see the same woman from the pool. “Much so.” Enjoying was perhaps too strong of a word, yet it wasn’t something she was about to admit to a virtual stranger. 

A Godfrey? Made sense. There had been something somewhat familiar about her. She had thought so. “I remember.” A pause. “What about you? Is this something you enjoy?”

             “  MOM  ,  they  didn’t  let  me  bring  in  capri  -  suns  ,  “  and  it’s  hard  to  tell  if  he’s  serious  about  the  MOM  or  the  CAPRI  -  SUNS  part  ,  but  now  he’s  pouting  on  the  bar  stool  ,  dressed  to  the  NINES  .  “  i  don’t  want  any  of  this  GARBAGE  !  “  motions  to  the  booze  behind  the  bar  .

@opxliaelv  OPHELIA  WANTED  HER  ADOPTED  SON  TO  COMPLAIN  TO  HER  !

OPHELIA ELVERTON

                              LEADER OF THE FAE FOUNDING FAMILY

                   FOUNDER’S GALA 2019

       Cassius rose from his seat and pushed it out, then walked over towards Ophelia.  “ Sit, please, “  he nudged her to his desk chair, wanting her to calm down, at least a little. He didn’t blame her, in the state she was. Hearing it was a werewolf made his blood boil, a hand a his side curling into a fist.  “ That’s… I don’t even know what to say to that. Was he part of a pack ?  He had to have been a rogue.  I can talk to Felix and Ezekiel and have them look into it. “  Cassius paused, unsure how to word the next question possibly.   “ There was nothing done to provoke him, right ?   You know how tempestuous werewolves can be. Not even by you, by anything going on. “ 

Ophelia swallowed thickly, chest heaving. After a moment, she sat down, forcing herself to do so. “I don’t know. We didn’t exactly stick around to find out who he was. Cassius you know what people think of us. Is it really so impossible that it wasn’t a rogue? That he wasn’t insane?” While her answer had almost been soft, the question almost caused her fly back to a rage. “All Yasmine was talking about was how crap it is being stuck there. How the trek home never gets any better. She is well within her rights to feel like that and it was none of his business. So no. We did nothing to provoke him.” At one point, she had stood back up, furious with the idea that somehow this was their fault. All they had done was exist. That was more than enough to warrant such treatment in the eyes of some.

he wasn’t a complete idiot, he’s aware that something pretty damn significant just happened, especially for ophelia. it reminded him of the start, the first time he’d seen some fucking kids tearing into her like she wasn’t a whole ass professor, her looking at him like she hadn’t expected anyone to defend her other than herself. maybe because she hadn’t. he found, though, that often people didn’t want to make a big deal of it, so he kept quiet and simply carried on. that being said, his chin popped up in interest. “ does that come from a purely academic sense or … ” witches didn’t often get the extended lifespan, and while he didn’t wish it for himself he always found himself asking about it. he didn’t know much about ophelia, honestly, only what she offered from their talks. 

Moving to sit on her mothers desk she shook her head, “And no one knows what it’s about? Not even Cassius?” If anyone in the city could find out Winter would count her mother and Cassius as the smartest, the ones who would know the most. “Humans don’t know, they only know about the murder. Someone would have said something if they did.” It was too ominous for humans. “I haven’t seen anyone panicking about it. Mostly just confusion.” But her mother would know more than she did about it.

Ophelia’s eyes followed her daughter as she sat on her desk, she’d long ago stopped telling to not do such a thing. “No, even Cassius.” She almost smiled at that. The masterful Cassius not knowing a thing. It would be funny if the situation wasn’t so dark. “Someone’s threatening us, all of us. There might not be panic now but there will be eventually. Even more bodies drop, that’ll be enough to scare the humans. Always is”

      “ Sweet. You know how much I love your bike, “  Yasmine wiggled her eyebrows at the fae woman. But it was true – she had never been on the back of one before Ophelia, but ever since getting introduced to it Yasmine had been yearning for her own. She wasn’t sure how her friend did it, though; Staten Island was NOT the place to have a motorcycle. Perhaps one day when Yasmine moved on to live somewhere else, she’d buy herself one. The succubus could already picture herself cruising through wine country with her own little bike.  “ But seriously.  If I ever move out of New York, it’ll totally be because I’m fed up with this frickin’ island. What do you think the council would do if I decided to say fuck it and move to Manhattan ?  Would they even notice ? “  Yasmine’s voice could probably be lower, but she wasn’t paying attention. Nobody in New York really paid attention to one another. Though she didn’t notice the man nearby, beginning to eye the two women silently.

“My office is connected to my home, I pretty much live in the exact same place I work. Needed to get out of there, you know?”

This was the truth. When she was too stationary, too trapped in the same place, Cait had a tendency to get stuck in her head. The witch was starting to have conversations with herself and while that was always characteristic of the over-thinker, they were becoming worse as of late. She blamed it on the stress. The talking to herself, the long internal monologues - but this weird thing was happening too. For the first time, another voice was  slipping in.

Cait was a medium, of course, and so ghosts cycled through her body often and used it as a container to speak through to the world. Not at all strange. This voice, though, it felt different. Like it was coming from within her.

Like now, it looked at this unknown woman and Cait was suddenly taken by the thought:  

< I think we should hurt her before she hurts us. >

A strange and foreign impulse - one that she could only call a glitch in her brain.  So Cait ignored it. She kicked the water; debated pulling out her cigarettes, continuing on with the night. She’d noticed the woman had yet to leave - was she just going to stand there and hum? Ugh. 

Cait sighed.

“If you wanted to come in and use the pool you’re more than welcome to. You don’t have to stand out there. I don’t bite.”

Most of the time.

“Fair enough.” Ophelia was quite certain she’d go crazy if holed up in her home all day. The commute from Staten Island to NYU was annoying, it was at least getting out of the house. Going swimming in a locked off pull though? Not necessarily something she’d think of. 

She hadn’t realised how long she’d been standing there until the other woman spoke again.  Gett in the pool? The idea was ridiculous. There wasn’t a world where she was about to relax to that degree in front of a woman she didn’t even know. Yet, her conscience wouldn’t let her just leave. What if she did and something happened? Was she capable of defending herself? She didn’t know. 

She walked in and she took a seat one of the benches. “It’s not safe to be alone at the moment.”