WARNING : SECURITY BREECH

It was her twin sister’s uncontrolled magic that had gotten them all sent to the Salvatore School in the first place, and in some ways, Winter had never totally forgiven her for that. There was fear there, of course - that if she and Sage argued like any other pair of siblings did, she would be the next on her twin’s body count, but in a much more superficial way, Winter was simply angry at the fact that she’d been taken away from her home in exchange for a boarding school where she perhaps did not have all the power she could have had at the high school back home, in the town where people knew the family name if only because of the money that accompanied it. 

But instead she was stuck in Mystic Falls - and now New Orleans, to finish off her senior year, which she hates marginally less, but still very much detests. 

Maybe it wasn’t all bad, though.

Always proud to be the center of attention, the Salvatore School had moved it’s students down to New Orleans for no more than twelve hours before the petite blonde was found flirting her way into a bar, eager to explore the famous New Orleans bar scene that she’d heard so much about, when she met him. The one who had given her a grin that showed he knew full well she couldn’t yet buy alcohol herself, and when he’d asked her how old she was, she’d simply told him that she’d tell him at the end of the night if he’d earned it. It was a dangerous game to play, of course, but this was Winter’s element - flirting, batting her eyelashes, and getting what she wanted when she wanted it. And he’d given in, at least a little. Had bought her a drink - and made some comment about making sure no one took advantage of her, saying it was his responsibility now - and then another, and another, and at the end of the night, he hailed her a cab and asked her again for age... And name. And this time, she gave it to him, beaming the bright ‘nineteen’ at him as she spoke to him through the open cab window, and she slips a cocktail napkin with her number into his palm without much of a hesitation.

It wasn’t until she was sneaking in through a window she’d left cracked that she realized she didn’t feel warm and fuzzy at all, no drunken buzz plaguing her senses, and it occurs to her that after the first drink - the only real one - none of them had really tasted of alcohol at all. It, perhaps, makes her more fond of the mysterious, kind stranger who most would certainly call too old for her than she was before, and she falls asleep that night hoping he actually does call.