#nataliya

for me it was Neapolitan hair.

ARIA: 

Find the target. That's the goal here. What the actual fuck had she gotten herself into? The man had been described to her before she'd been set loose: white, 6'5, black hair gray streaks, glasses, smells of dead. A vampire, then. It hadn't seemed like it would be that much of an issue when she was set loose into the university campus – most people here smell of something to satiate her hunger: metallic and filling. 

She'd been told she had twenty four hours to complete the job. She'd considered letting loose on the whole damn place, but she'd been made aware that they were testing her for discretion rather than what she'd done before with the nightclub down south. 

The first hour started with reconnaissance. 

It felt ridiculous, if she were going to be completely honest with herself. It felt like she was making a mistake. But she didn't stand out in Tideview with her camera at this time of year. If anything, she was simply here to take photos for the website, commissioned and paid for already. One person in administration had already questioned her, but a quick compulsion and she was free to roam with a visitor's pass without signing the guest book. 

That quick compulsion also let her check the records of those who worked in the university and their IDs stored in the computer. It was a guess, really, that the target worked there. The peppered gray and black hair was all she had to go off for age. She compiled a few possibilities looking through the professors and administrators. It was then, only, to get close to them to see which one 'smelled of a dead thing'. 

The fifth hour rolled as she was taking a photo of another professor leaving their class. Not the one, but photos help sell the story nonetheless. She flicks through the ones she already haves, and makes her way towards them to pass by in the crowd unseen. A subtle breath in tells her that something like her is near, but when she looks up - it's not the man she'd had eyes on. Whipping around, she sees a retreating figure with graying black hair. 

Shit. 

Running would make a scene, and he's already too far away from the crowd for her to switch gears. Aria finds herself walking a little further in the direction she's already going, then makes two left turns in the hallway to hopefully intercept – no speed, can't use speed here. Her height gives her long enough strides to look like she's in a hurry, and by the time she makes it back to the quad, this person has already made it into another building. Fuckin' A. 

With people around and looking, she keeps with the long strides until she makes it to the building. She makes it into the empty-ish science building, and only takes a moment to gather her surroundings and start forward on the trek to find the mark when she's knocked into the nearest wall. 

NATALIYA:

Nataliya's not happy about this. Even if hunting vampires is something she would do without Kali's influence, she can't shake the feeling she's only playing her games. To what end? She doesn't know, but it has to benefit her somehow. Or benefit Reardon, which is just as bad. Nataliya knows she's nothing but a pawn, and will continue to be one for as long as her deal is in effect, she has no other choice but to do what Kali says, but maybe at least some good could come from this. One fewer vampire in the streets means more lives will be saved no matter what game Reardon is playing. And, God, does she miss hunting.

Her mission is almost too easy, though. With all the information she was given, it was trivial to find Aria's target and shadow the man from a comfortable distance. She blended more than well enough at a university too, being an academic herself, and only had to worry about the vampire making the mistake that would cause her death. It was never like this in real hunts. No, hunts usually meant throwing herself at the danger head on, it was dirty work with no promise of a monster happily walking into your trap. It was hard fought and exhilarating. By the third or fourth hour of waiting for Aria, Nat was already getting bored.

Nataliya is ready when the bell rings signaling the end of a class. She'd been watching the man long enough to have a general idea of his schedule and his movements, so all she had to do was to look for any weird movements around him. It was just starting to look like her wait was going to continue when she saw her, Aria, following him to the next building. Game on.

The easy part was over, and now the fun part began. She had to be fast and not give Aria the chance to act, but in a hunt, giving yourself away too soon means death. She used a different path, using a side door to get into the building and in the right position to attack. She controlled her breath and reached for her stake. Her heart is beating fast. One... two... go.

Nataliya pushes Aria against a wall and follows up to press her forearm against her neck. She has to check if Kali was telling the truth, that she was actually hunting a vampire, and luckily her target's fangs quickly tell her everything she has to know. She only has maybe a quarter of a second to drive the stake through the vampire's heart — not long enough. Aria frees herself in her struggle and strikes back. Nataliya is almost glad she does. She wants the fight. After all this time, she needs it.

The two use any weapon they have at their disposal, from fangs and stakes to pure physical strength. Nat isn't as strong as Aria is, but she's a better fighter. She has no idea how many times the vampire battled a hunter but Nataliya has over a decade's worth of experience in killing monsters like her. She knows their moves, and how to counter them. When Aria tries to run, Nataliya throws her stake with the aim only the most well trained would have in that moment to hit the vampire on her back. Aria's on the floor, agonizing.

Not over yet. Nataliya's blood is pumping like it hasn't in weeks, she's grinning, she's gonna win. While she walks over to Aria she notices the blood in her shirt. She was caught somewhere in the fight, another scar's joining the collection, but nothing she can't live with. Just the sign of a job well done. When she reaches the vampire she pulls the stake out of her back and with her leg she turns the vampire over. Another hunter would probably throw some quip at the poor thing, say some final words and curse them to death, but not Nataliya — she just wants to finish the job. She adjusts the stake in her hand, aims for the heart, and drives it through Aria's flesh.

She misses.

ARIA: 

The fight is panic-inducing, most of her action fueled by the need to fucking live more than the need to win this thing and finish the initiation. The stake through her back burns like fucking fire, and it's when the hunter misses that Aria takes her shot. She smells the blood and her nostrils flare, fangs poking through her lips making it clear who the monster really is here. Swallowing, Aria stops breathing altogether and scrambles backwards to get away from her. 

The miss and the shot: Aria flails backwards with her elbow to hopefully knock her out and not fucking kill her. She doesn't stay around long enough to double check the damage or to finish the job. That's not what she's here for. 

It's too late for discretion, though, so she speeds away to a clear hallway, stopping there for a beat to look up at the nearest security camera to flip it the bird. "Dickweeds." And then she's moving again, breathing again to follow the scent of the man she'd been trailing. 

She finds him in a chemistry lab, preparing for the next wave of students to come in, in a white lab coat and blood on slides. Whatever the fuck they're studying, she's not trying to make sense of it, and simply rushes him - pinning him against a fridge the smells full of formaldehyde and chemicals. It burns. He begs, like he knew this was coming. 

Maybe he was always going to be a target, but she's certain that it's not her place to ask, and it's certainly not something she's ever going to learn soon. She presses her hand against his chest, digging in until her fingers find his heart – with its lack of heart beat and cool slick blood against her fingers. 

She looks into his eyes, tries to find something about this that gives her some sort of pause, some sort of trigger into the person she was before – all she finds is, again: exhilaration. 

@nataliyapetkova

Çaska is hastily swapping a set of dressed back and forth across her chest. This cut, or that? This color, or that? These embellishments, or those? Her face is pursed in rapt contemplation - no Boy tonight, because she's on the prowl, and he tastes pretty boring, and looks pretty boring, and she thinks maybe the twenty first century is where she just wholesale goes with girls for a change, because she's just not really too much digging the male aesthetic here in the twenty-twenties.

"Excuse me, which?" she asks a woman passing by - spinning to face her, swapping the dresses. "I want to look alluring, not slutty. But also hot, yeah? What do you think?"

Adelaide

Luke

Grimm Fairy Tales: Tarot #2