#cor.conclave

Lucas wasn’t stupid. He knew a werewolf-specific job was probably for something shady that he didn’t want to get involved in, but... uprooting his life and road tripping across the country to freak out and procrastinate meeting his only living family was expensive, and he needed the cash. Besides, how bad could it be? He’d thrown on something decent enough to not look like he’d wandered in off the street, cleaned up his appearance, and even got a haircut instead of just doing it himself in a mirror.  

Keep to the edges of the room, look vaguely intimidating, and keep an eye out for hunters who might cause trouble and any human that attracts it. Easy money.

Or, it should be. The last person to get on his nerves clearly mistook him for a waiter, snapping their fingers at him and watching him expectantly like he was a dog that was taking too long to learn a new trick, their drink order getting lost and jumbled beneath the sound of the music and the hum of the crowd. He wasn’t above pulling the deaf card to get out of that, cocking his head to the side and tapping his bad ear with a practiced look of regret on his face, the kind that said Oh I’m so sorry, there is nothing I would have wanted more than to hear your drink order instead of Snap at me like a dog again and I’ll take your glass and shove it so far up your—

Deep breath. Whatever. The asshole had wandered off without a fight, thankfully, and he was back to watching the crowd, leaning against the wall. He only spared a glance when someone came to lean on the same wall, taking a break from the crowd. They were on his good side, at least, so he didn't have to turn too much to hear them. 

“Sick of it already?” Lucas said, turning his head to the other person to try to get a read on them "Party's only just starting." 

She skulks around the corner and presses her back against the wall as she watches a handful of Mariposas and at least one Kanoute Vampire run past. The Vampire could have probably sniffed her out if the room weren't so full of other wolves and more, and Millie's short stature comes in clutch again.

No matter though, because she's got the pretty little thing she swiped; a tiny little hair piece one of the Mariposas had been showing his friend. A piece of her feels, for the moment, reflexively bad for taking it, but, well, maybe this'll be enough of a grab to pay off that sexy Dracula woman.

She eyes the tines of the hairpin, and the intricate carving, and runs her fingers along the tiny thing for a moment, then, wonders if maybe she should give it to Jeanette.

Millie goes to scratch an itch on her face just then, only to find her shirt's... bigger than she remembers it being. She rolls the sleeve up, then rolls it up some more, then some more, then even more. "What the... oh fuuuuu—

And just like that, there's a weird siezing feeling in all of her muscles and bones, but it's squishy, squeamish, not like the twisting agony of the turn.

There's a whisp of smoke and spectral butterflies then, fluttering from over a pile of stylish clothes and cute bat boots.

'Should we?' A voice rings out. The Mariposa witches and their vampire friend arrive then, picking the little hairpin out of the wad of clothes, laughing to eachother as they go back to their table. 'Naw, she'll figure it out.'

There's a minute where she's not sure where she is, but it only takes a second to crawl out of the mound of her clothes and see herself reflected in the polish of her massive boot. "Oh, fuckoff!" she squeaks.

Sammy knew that a party full of supernaturals wasn't the best place to let himself get goaded into a drinking game, but it was supposed to be a party. This was the first time in months that he wasn’t the designated driver, and he didn’t want to waste that. Vampires and werewolves and witches didn’t make it less of a party, it just made it a weirder one than he was used to.

He hadn’t really kept track of how much he’d had. He’d started to drift from his usual state of “giddy drunk” to the slightly more dangerous area of “I swear I’m not that drunk, do you want to see me do this cool trick? I’m gonna do a cool trick, check this out” about half an hour ago, which was the time he decided to drop the game and go find some food to try to balance it all out. With his skateboard at home and nothing looking very climbable, he was putting all of the energy and focus that would have been dedicated to trying some poorly-thought out trick into making increasingly weird flavor combinations at one of the charcuterie boards around the room. A win for self control!

Not a win for anyone who wanted to have actually good food, but he wasn’t going to just abandon his creation. He’d read Frankenstein in enough lit classes to know how badly that would go, and he wasn’t in any kind of state to deal with what might happen if that plate of grapes and olives (which he had called The Orbs, convinced himself would be a great sweet/salty balance, and then promptly realized was nasty) turned against him. 

Sammy turned from the platter mid-bite, plate still in hand, to see that someone had been talking to him. He hadn’t even heard them walk up, with all the music and the chatter around them. He leaned forwards, speaking loudly to try to be heard over the music, “Sorry, what?”

Shiv only came to this gala for two reasons.

One, to let all of Port Leiry, including their attackers, know that Kanta Shah is still alive and well. Two, to find a witch. Specifically the witch connected to this spoiled raccoon familiar and then the witch that tended to their comatose body, Thera Wendell. Whatever order in which these events happened did not matter.

If Shiv was lucky, these two witches would be the same person and they could kill two birds with one stone, but they're not holding their breath. "Wendell, Wendell, Wendell..." They mutter to themself. Wherever could she be?

Restless eyes hold a keen focus as they scan every face amongst the crowd, searching for anyone that could vaguely feel familiar. The hunter maneuvers through the venue with purpose, occasionally reaching for fancy hors d'oeuvres as an offering to the equally fancily dressed fiend on their shoulders. "Here. Try this one." The raccoon makes a face. She's surprisingly a very picky eater. Most of the food Shiv gave her has been tossed aside. So much so that it's leaving a snail trail of crumbs and half-eaten finger food behind the hunter.

SUPERNATURAL CONCLAVE & GALA

"You look a little alone." He says as he meanders a bit closer.

The cocktail hour and dinner party thing had been potentially the most boring fifty-five to sixty minutes of his life outside of a few momentary highlights. But as the drinking winds down, and the eating spindles out into something a bit more indulgent he finds himself bored in a different kind of way. He doesn't want to bug Kali or Gael about the jewelry, not here and not tonight, antsy as he is.

There's a song playing, all strings and keys and subtle woodwinds and he can't help but feel nostalgic. "You dance?"

He holds his hand out to Eleanor. "No pressure to perform, I'm all left feet."

where: the conclave gala

Caitlin Siltshore glides through the gala with that barely leashed storm - energy she calls composure, eyes flashing like struck flint at every unfamiliar sigil and whispered alliance. Having Atlas Jay on her arm is both flex and a headache — he looks like a dream, but the man can’t order a rideshare to save his soul (see: Uber fiasco.) Whatever. Tonight she can forgive logistical sins; the room hums with fresh variables, and Cait is starving for substance.

Atlas Jay slips away toward the bar— leaving Cait to survey the ballroom’s constellation of coven colors. A quick pulse of witch-light from her fingertips tags another Garnett member across the floor: Signal if anything goes wrong. Fucking hate not having our phones on us. She breathes out, lets her shoulders drop. The night stretches ahead, wide-mouthed and glittering with possibility.

Surya Bhansali is holding court nearby—eternal night, vampiric supremacy, blah blah logistics—and Cait won’t waste perfectly good oxygen debating a plan that ignores basic circadian biology. Coven Mariposa’s leader, Lucho Miralles, flits past in an ambrosial blur; intriguing, but then, there—Fia Palmgren of Wyrmwood, rune-script glowing along the cuffs of their clothes.

Cait turns to the stranger beside her, angling her body like a blade poised to strike conversation.

"I’m dying to find out how Wyrmwood grafts kinetic runes without blowing half their pieces apart. Want to crash the conversation with me? Two brains are harder to brush off than one.”

The Garnett creed thrums in her chest: knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied.

"Quarters!"

She's in that feeling good phase of getting drunk. She should slow it up, but honestly, the wrenching burning in her side, below her dress, begs to differ, and beside, for all the stress settling on Avi and Arte's shoulders tonight, she's feeling remarkably light for the first time in a year.

Sure, she left an absolute fire burning back in the big Apple. But that's for Big Brother and Little Sister to fight over putting out.

She made it.

She throws an arm around Morgan Moss - not roughly, mind - but in a friendly way. "I am so surprised you're not dead. Did you ever figure out the verbena thing?"