Ayla chuckled a bit as she leaned forward, placing her chin on her hand. “Well, you might be surprised as to what people will do when they think no is watching.” She said, gesturing outward with her other hand. “For instance, there was a  young couple talking quite loudly just over there about their star-crossed romance, a werewolf and vampire apparently. I also heard one gentleman trying to convince another to help him with some criminal acts, though said criminal acts weren’t interesting enough for me to care very much.” She smirked at Steffi. “There was also a group of young ladies talking about some very untoward things they would like to do with one Ethan Schuyler.”

Admittedly, this had the potential to be interesting gossip - similar to the type of information she would linger on when she discovered it in the thoughts of others. Mainly because could make for good leverage against whomever was thinking it, which did make it slightly frustrating that Ayla hadn’t divulged the names associated with the first two pieces of information. There wasn’t a way to ask for that information without admitting she wanted to know more though, and so she ignored the first two pieces of gossip, instead grimacing at the mention of her ex. “I wish them the best of luck, I suppose. Though what they could possibly want with that pompous, self-centered asshole is beyond me.” Bold words, coming from someone who was rather pompous and self-centered herself and had been romantically entangled with the man in question on more than one occasion.

Elaine let a playful grin curl her lips, she normally reveled in being a bit mysterious, aloof, someone most people couldn’t read at first glance. But there was no reason to do that with Steffi, especially not anymore. The other woman had been her for a while, had seen more than anyone ever should have – and besides. Steffi was infinitely more ‘aloof’ than she would ever be. Not that Elaine minded one bit. She’d leave that brooding, boring, annoying, demeanor to the woman in front of her form now on. At least – while the two were together. She assumed occasionally she’d slip back into her bit quieter aloof ways, but with Steffi… she found it more fun to annoy her now.

“Oh come on Steffi.” Elaine said, rolling her green eyes. “You know you miss the flavor of real food and not just blood.” she halted brushing her clothes off and walked in a slow half circle around Steffi. She wasn’t trying to size her up or anything, though she assumed the vampire might think that….No Elaine just couldn’t remain still right now. She had too much energy surging through her veins. She took the bill and raised a single eyebrow as she slipped it open. “You’re ridiculous.” She laughed but folded it and stuffed it in her back pocket. 

Elaine flexed her arms out, feeling her muscles pulling with every little movement, stretching them until she felt the pleasant pain that told her she had exercised the muscle a bit more. “You must have the most ridiculously high dry cleaning bill if you thought that that blouse I wore for half a night when I went on a walk was dirty.” She shrugged, she had the money to pay for this, and honestly. She really didn’t care, she just wanted to point out how petty this whole thing was.

-

Steffi frowned, not at all pleased with the way this conversation was going nor the way Elaine was circling around her. Real or imagined, it felt like she’d lost some authority with the fae during their time in each other’s bodies, and she didn’t appreciate the feeling one bit. “Think what you want,” she scoffed, deciding this was the best approach if outright denial wasn’t going to work. Ultimately, she cared less about what Elaine thought as opposed to the world at large - and while there was always the possibility that Elaine might start gossiping about her, it at least seemed much less likely considering their... unfortunate shared experience. 

“Perhaps - or perhaps I simply pay better attention to my surroundings than you,” Steffi countered. She was wholly convinced that, if they held to the same standard of cleanliness, her dry cleaning bill would be lower than Elaine’s - the woman simply didn’t have the attention to detail needed to prevent mess in the first place. “In any case, I don’t expect you to understand the value of a well maintained wardrobe,” she sniffed.

“Luckily for you, I am almost certain that what they call French fries are only fake French. Ha, this is probably enough information. I don’t think I’ve recently seen you so candid about something that isn’t detrimental to someone else. It’s okay, Steffi. I won’t tell anyone about your comfort foods. I had more than my fair share as well. Do you know what’s amazing? Bread.” If vampires got to have bread instead of blood, Lark would have been a very happy camper. She was slightly teasing Steffi here, but she had her own complicated feelings about the two weeks of food-eating. It wouldn’t do to be completely mean. Even those mixed up emotions couldn’t make her broad smile slip too much.

Steffi nodded curtly, pleased that she’d satisfied Lark’s bizarre need for details on which foods she’d preferred. She could see where the information would have been useful if there was a chance that they might need to eat human food again anytime soon, but - seeing as the odds of that didn’t seem terribly high, these details had clearly been for entertainment alone. “If I haven’t been candid about much else by comparison, it’s simply because there is so much out there to criticize that I’m exhausted by the time I’m through,” she assured Lark. Certainly she would be candid on a wider range of topics if there wasn’t so very much for her to be critical of. “I wouldn’t call bread amazing, but I’m glad you enjoyed it. I take it you spent some time at that fae’s bakery?”

“I will remain as long as I feel like staying out here and clean up when I am finished. I have only been out here a short time. It gives me time to come up with a suitable punishment for their trickery.” Ayla said, unfazed by the judgement she could feel coming from Steffi. Some would call her a pushover when it came to the children, but they were traumatized children who dealt with a lot. She only put her foot down when she deemed it necessary. There would be no actual punishment per say but she had a few ideas. “You would be surprised what you can observe just watching people pass.”

Steffi’s expression shifted subtly at Ayla’s mention of ‘suitable punishment’, holding the woman in slightly higher regard now than a moment previous. The fact that Ayla seemed unperturbed by her obvious judgment was also a point in the woman’s favor - even if it was a bit unusual to Steffi that someone might choose to stand their ground to her, but not a bunch of children. “I suppose that’s your prerogative,” she conceded. “Tell me then, have you observed anything of interest this evening?” 

Sasha looked at the other woman, with a ghost smile when the other woman seems to have some kind of ‘taste’ as her. ❛ I don’t know why they would do that either, but then again… I don’t know many people of our kind. ❜ Which was true, the Russian was a bit loner, with a cat now a few 'friendships’ or acquainted she is getting to know better.

Sasha didn’t exactly knows what they served on that diner just the basic, and she never was too keen to finding out. But they have a nice pictures of good milkshakes. ❛ If I wasn’t a vampire either, I’d probably would go somewhere else. ❜ On her job, she used to meet nice places with a lot of junk food that seems more delicious than this one. ❛ I’m judging, so I get it your point. ❜ It was true, Sasha couldn’t care less about the other’s preference. ❛ I’m not interested, I only enjoy one kind of food, at the moment. ❜ It is blood. Sometimes she drinks wine, but other than that, she’s always drinking blood. The Russian goes on establishment like this to buy drinks and threw them away, just to get more social or make a friendship with someone or to simply observe people, it was one of her hobbies.

Elaine had spent a lot of her free time since getting back in her body in the ethereal realm. She hadn’t realized just how much she missed and loved that place until she couldn’t go back no matter how much she wanted to. Since she returned to her fae body she also spent a decent amount of time in her animal form. Finding comfort in being little and — not expected. Which is exactly what she was doing tonight.

Wandering the town in her red panda form, playing in the trees. She was up high in one such tree when she spotted a very familiar form — one who’s body she had been in for a bit to long. She slipped out of the tree and in the middle of her little fall she flipped into her normal fae body and brushed off the dirt from her outfit. A small smile spreading over her lips. She ran a hand though her hair and cocked her head to one side.

“You. Mostly. Are you missing food?” she asked, eyebrows raising. “It does smell delicious.”

Having missed Elaine’s transformation entirely, Steffi frowned when she saw who it was - and more to the point, when she realized how close by Elaine was. How had she gotten so close without her noticing? It must have had something to do with Elaine’s abilities, she decided. Whether the woman had transformed into a red panda to escape notice or somehow controlled plants for much the same purpose, all Steffi was certain of was that it couldn’t possibly have been her own personal failure to notice someone a reasonable distance away. She watched as Elaine brushed dirt from her clothing, eyes narrowing further still at the movement and at the woman’s assertion.

“I most certainly am not,” she assured Elaine, wrinkling her nose at the prospect. Or rather, at the prospect of admitting that the prospect of eating actually seemed somewhat appealing. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how long Elaine had been around, so she couldn’t claim that she had just been quickly passing by. She refrained from coming up with a new explanation, mainly because she didn’t need to explain herself to anyone. “While I have you though - “ Steffi reached into her bag, pulling out an envelope and handing it over “ - here’s your dry cleaning invoice, for the clothing you dirtied during the... incident. You don’t need to pay me back this instant, of course, but within the next week would be ideal.” 

Did Steffi need to invoice Elaine for the clothes she’d needed to get cleaned? Absolutely not. She had more than enough money, which was why she’d only billed the woman for clothing that she felt had been treated in ways that exceeded expected wear and tear. 

When it came to Steffi, Ayla preferred to keep her distance for the most part. She didn’t have anything against her fellow vampire but Steffi’s personality was not an easy one to experience. “The children have abandoned their business venture, although they claimed they would return quickly. I am keeping an eye on it for now, at least until I grow bored enough to take everything inside.”

“I see,” Steffi answered, slightly relieved for the sake of Ayla’s sanity that the woman hadn’t set up the stand of her own volition, even if the response given did prove that she was a pushover. “So you’re just going to run their business for them, down to the cleanup. How long have you been out here, now?” She suspected it was entirely longer than would be reasonable.

Nothing better had happened to Lark in the last three years, so she would not get over this situation any time soon. Getting Steffi to admit that something that was ‘below her’ was not terrible was worth celebrating. As long as she didn’t spread this around to anyone else, Lark was reasonably sure that she could happily keep poking fun at this for years to come. Salt free versions. Steffi had really drawn the short stick when it came to species to swap with. “You deny plenty of things that are true, Steffi. If we didn’t live together, I’m half-convinced you’d deny that we’re friends.” Life had been pretty frustrating lately, and there was nothing better than having Steffi mildly embarrassed. It wouldn’t be nearly this entertaining if it was anything but a tragic inconvenience. “Fine, fine. I won’t tell anyone but you have to tell me all about your favorites. What did you like best? I feel like you were very into potato-based cuisine. You have to tell me everything because I can’t tell anyone else.”

Steffi hummed noncommittally at that - she probably wouldn’t deny that she was friends with Lark these days anyway, but there were certainly past decades when that would have been her default reaction were it not for the fact that the two did indeed live together. She sighed heavily at Lark’s insistence on getting even more information, regretting her decision immediately. “...the french fries were quite good, despite their name,” she admitted. She wasn’t sure why french fries had that name, having paid little to no attention to human food for several centuries now. She could only hope that it had been some kind of misnomer. “The potato salad wasn’t bad either, nor the milkshakes. Though those wasn’t as good as the apple strudel. Is that enough information for you?” On the one hand she wasn’t a fan of the fact that Lark had somehow been able to pinpoint the ingredient of the food at the diner that had turned out to be her favorite. On the other though, it was a little flattering that Lark paid enough attention to be able to determine something like that, considering the woman utterly lacked any sort of mind-reading abilities. 

SASHA LIKES TO stay on that place just to observe the motions, seeing people and sometimes go to hunt. That exactly moment in specific, she wanted to observe the motions. She watched the options offered on that café, she has to ‘pretend’ she is human. The vampire got momentarily lost in her thoughts when a voice wake up from her daze. ❛ Some promotions.. ❜ She clears her own throat staring at the woman beside her. ❛ Is there something in special do you like? ❜

Like Steffi, Lark had also gotten a lot out of enjoying food during her time swapped with Isobel. Upon returning to her body, she had been quite distraught about the loss of little human things. Food had been enjoyable, yes, but the smell of it barely registered now that Lark was back to her normal diet: very little blood. It was the same as ever, really. The diner just smelled like blood to her. The hospital smelled like blood. Everywhere except for her own house was blood, blood, blood. It was very gross, but that was how she had decided she must live her life.

Raising her eyebrows, Lark relished that she had caught Steffi looking uncomfortable. She wasn’t quite sure what the defensive reaction meant, but Lark had some suspicions. But why the diner? What was even in there? “I’m looking at you, but I’m not really sure why I’m looking at you. Care to elaborate before I start making too many guesses?” Lark wanted a good talk, but she would rather figure out what was up with Steffi first because this already promised to be entertaining.

Steffi sighed heavily, deciding that it really would be more trouble than it was worth to try and hide the truth of the situation from Lark. The woman had already caught her red handed (more or less), and knew her well enough by now that Steffi wasn’t sure a lie would be convincing. This was exactly the problem with having friends, as far as she was concerned - especially annoyingly curious friends like Lark. “I was just... passing by for the smell. As it turns out, even pedestrian eateries such as this one aren’t entirely awful, when one needs food. Even salt free versions of what’s on offer,” she admitted. She almost wished she’d been in a body where she hadn’t had a reason to avoid salt so that she could have enjoyed the food even more, but there was certainly no need to tell Lark that - no, she’d already told her rather enough as it was. For the most part she’d stuck to only the classiest of foods while she’d been in Elaine’s body, but now Lark knew the dirty little secret that that wasn’t all she’d partaken in. “Tell anyone though, and I’ll deny it” she added haughtily, more to have something to say in response to that annoying entertained expression on Lark’s face than out of actual concern that the woman would spread this information around. 

The past few weeks had been a trying time for Steffi. Not as trying as not too long ago swapping bodies with Elaine, of course, but still. All of this nonsense with Ethan and the dome was getting on her last nerve, for more reasons than one. It was utterly absurd that so many people in town were rallying behind a mongrel like Fritz of all people, but she couldn’t deny that the optics of the situation were terrible. Worse still, Ethan’s little extrajudicial hissy fit would only make Fritz harder to prosecute if the police ever did manage to do their jobs for once and arrest the little cretin. 

Contemplating the matter was only making her angrier and angrier and so she’d set out for a walk to clear her head, only to come to a stop when she recognized a familiar scent. The diner had never been a location of interest to her before - if she’d felt anything about it at all, surely that feeling had been nothing more than a mild repulsion. Ever since her brief stint in a Fae’s body and actually needing to eat though, the smell of fried food was far more appealing than she’d care to admit. She could only very faintly smell it from outside the establishment, but she dared not go in - and she certainly wasn’t going to eat any of it. She had no need of it for nourishment after all, and the... side effects of a vampire eating were truly disgusting. Still, she couldn’t help but linger. 

At the sight of someone else approaching she turned, ready to vehemently deny any interest in the diner at all if need be. “What are you looking at?”

Ayla honestly couldn’t be happier to be in her own body. It had been kind of nice being able to go out in broad daylight with no covering up, but she much preferred being herself. Even if that meant she was currently sitting at a lemonade stand by herself, looking like a fool. Just taking a quick break her young charges had told her. Bullshit, that was 15 minutes ago. “Lemonade for sale.” Ayla deadpanned, wondering why she was still sitting there. She was much too soft it seemed. 

Steffi hadn’t expected to see a lemonade stand well out on a nighttime stroll, much less one being run that rather looked like it had been set up by a child being run by an adult woman. She knew Ayla headed up the orphanage in town, but she would have assumed that the woman spending so much time associating with children would not have led Ayla to taking up childish pastimes or moneymaking schemes when no children were present. “I’ll have to pass,” Steffi replied dryly, visibly disinterested in the lemonade. Or at least, that was the image she projected. Ever since her stint in Elaine’s body though, she’d been much more fascinated with food and beverages than she’d care to admit. Now, she couldn’t help but wonder what lemonade might taste like. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

“Just the one advantage? Aw, that’s a real disappointment to hear,” Lark said, knowing that this was just mundane bickering with no barbs behind it. “Another advantage to keeping me around- you don’t have to live alone to tell you when you look really good. Given, you always look basically flawless, which I’m not entirely confident is a vampire thing or not.” And here was probably why Steffi actually kept her around. Lark didn’t exactly have deep romantic feelings for the her friend anymore (they had been unrequited to her knowledge). However, Steffi seemed to actually enjoy the praise, so she had not done anything but be honest.

“I suppose flattery doesn’t hurt either,” Steffi conceded. She was perfectly capable of reminding herself that she was flawless, but having other people remind her of it was always nice as well. “It certainly isn’t just a vampire thing,” she assured Lark, though she truly had no idea. It wasn’t as though she’d had ample access to reflective surfaces in human life - she’d been far from wealthy back then, and mirrors and the like hadn’t really become common for common folk until long after they’d ceased being of any use to her. 

Elaine stared at Steffi, eyes narrowing. Glaring at herself was just so strange but fuck, was she annoyed with this woman in her body. She couldn’t wait to get back into her own skin and avoid dealing with Steffi. It was easy enough, she had barely ever seen Steffi pre-body swap. It’d be easy enough to avoid her post. Because there WOULD be a post. She would make damn sure of it. “Annoying isn’t name-calling, it’s just an observation. Name-calling would be the idiotic things my brother and I would call one another over the years growing up.” She chuckled, “Speaking of him, or I guess, whoever’s in his body if he’s also switched, there’s a chance you’ll be able to communicate telepathically.” She shrugged. Elaine paused and lifted one shoulder in a shrug, “Fae, specifically spring fae, many of us have the ability to shift into some sort of animal, I can, or I guess right now you can control plant growth as well.” She twiddled her fingers in a way that she normally did to grow vines and was sad to not see some form. She knew they wouldn’t of course but — “I can avoid the sun.” Elaine nodded. “Certain precautions? Like what?” she asked, “I’d rather not be stuck in the house all day if possible. I may not be in my body, but my mind still craves nature.”

“Semantics,” Steffi huffed, rather annoyed already with what seemed to be an obsession with technicalities on Elaine’s part. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the woman’s mention of telepathic communication with her brother, and accompanying information about spring fae’s tendency to be able to shift into animals. At first she’d assumed that her ability to hear what Ulani was thinking in that goat body had been in some way associated with her usual telepathic abilities, but this made more sense. Especially as she hadn’t fed particularly recently, which made mind reading more difficult - not impossible, but she did need to be at least trying to do it. If her powers had stayed with her body though, that was for the best. “I suppose that brother of yours turns into a goat?” Steffi guessed. “Precautions like ensuring that you check the actual time the sun sets, rather than just making assumptions based on when you think it should have done so. And making absolutely certain that you know the time the sun rises and will be back well in advance of that.” Those were fairly obvious to Steffi, but she’d seen rookie vampires make mistakes along those lines more times than she cared to count. "Make sure you keep yourself well covered, and...” she hesitated for a split second, then continued. “I have a pendant that lessens the negative effects of the sun. You cannot use it to go outside during the day as you normally would, but it will protect you well enough to give you time be able to quickly get indoors or cover a window if you mess up.” She didn’t like telling Elaine about the pendant for two reasons - first, she didn’t want the woman to use it as a crutch to do dangerous things in her body. Second, she absolutely hated the idea of anyone knowing anything about her that could be used against her in the future. For the time being though, keeping her body intact was the most important thing.

“Steffi, I’ve known you for a lifetime, and I’ve only barely scratched the surface on who you are as a person. There is no way that you’re going to fancy a normal person, and only someone very strange would be compatible with you. Weird isn’t bad,” Lark said, not wanting to come right out and say that Steffi was an extremely weird person. She shook her head, smiling. “I can promise I won’t find you someone boring because there’s a chance I would be forced to spend time with your new paramour too. Ideally, I would not hate finding them wandering around your house at 5 in the morning.”

Steffi frowned slightly at that, reminding herself that she and Lark had very different impressions of what weird meant. She could see herself being quite happy with someone who wasn’t weird, but that was probably in part because she considered most people to be rather unlike herself and therefore extremely weird. Either way though, she supposed it didn’t matter how Lark defined the person, as long as the person selected wasn’t someone who drove her insane in a bad way. “I suppose that’s an advantage to keeping you around,” Steffi teased. It was the sort of comment she would make with a long sigh were it almost anyone else, but when it came to Lark there was no venom there, at least not today.

Elaine stared Steffi down, stared her own body down with a look of truly not giving a shit. “Gods you’re annoying.” she sad rolling her eyes, “I’m not going to have to explain to you how I wouldn’t have had the chance to gather information, am I? It’s only logical that my first thought would be that you pissed off some witch, considering I know I haven’t.” It was rare Elaine ever got frustrated or annoyed, but not being in her body apparently changed her tolerance for annoyance. She glanced down to the nails and furrowed her brow before looking back up at her body. She’d have to take care of these nails later. One was chipped and that would annoy the hell out of her. “Ground rules….” She repeated and nodded, “Right. Well, you’re lucky I don’t care about your space in the way as to be curious whats behind your locked doors. So long as whatever is behind it isn’t alive and won’t kill me.” She chuckled. She wouldn’t put it beyond Steffi to have a deadly creature behind a locked door. “As for rules for you – its not really – a rule so much as a warning, get overly emotional in any sense and you don’t calm down quickly, or properly and you’ll shift into a red panda. The only way to shift back is to really calm down and want to be human again. If you get stuck in the form, just make sure you don’t eat tons of meat, fruit is best. Otherwise you’ll feel really sick.”

“I suppose you’re free to make yourself look ridiculous with baseless conjecture instead of keeping your mouth shut until you have some idea of what you’re talking about, but that’s really not grounds for petty name-calling,” Steffi replied, not understanding why Elaine was so intent on doubling down on a stupid mistake. For Elaine’s sake, it was a good thing she had more pressing matters on her mind than why the woman in her body felt the need to make so many inane comments. Such as - “a red panda? That’s a strange power to have,” she scoffed. Still, the notes about what would trigger the shift and what was safe to eat were helpful. Eating - that was something she would need to figure out later too, if this wasn’t resolved quickly. “While we’re discussing our respective... physiologies though, I assume I don’t need to tell you to stay out of the sun. There are several rooms in the house with no windows at all; I’d prefer you stick to those. If you must use other rooms, stay away from the curtains.” It had been a debate whether she wanted to have windows in her home at all, but ultimately she’d decided that it was worth it to be able to uncover them during the nighttime - not to mention that a house entirely without windows would be much more difficult to sell, should she decide to permanently move away from Traceless. “This house should have everything you need in it - but if this isn’t resolved by nightfall and you’d like to briefly leave, let me know. There are certain precautions that you’ll need to take.” Of course, Elaine leaving the house during the day was entirely off the table.