#nereidofneed

Quietness was rather noticeable in the club that seemed to pulsate with life. Typically only the guild members on guard had such stoic natures to themselves, eyeing the patrons within cautiously, as though at any moment one might decide to take the frivolity of the sins within a little too far.

It was for this reason that Evelyn had quickly noticed the woman who seemed to stalk her prey with what seemed to Evelyn as quiet observance. She had to imagine Doran knew, he was old, and though he could be reckless she hadn't known him to be idiotic - well, not idiotic when it came to being hunted. Warning him seemed a waste of energy, and perhaps condescending, so for a while Evelyn observed the observer. Curious if it was known she was doing as much.

Evelyn herself was by no means subtle. Even the fact that in a crowd like this her typical provocative gowns blended more than they did on the street she was not even close to hiding her storm like blue eyes gazing in the woman's direction. They were hungry, displaying the desire within the succubus to devour her. Maybe that was why she stalked Doran, because he had held the same inclination and the woman now sought revenge for it, but if that was the case Evelyn was not worried for her own fate. Doran was known for his violence but Evelyn could be gentle. It was less fun but she could do it, for someone pretty.

"You are exquisite," Evelyn asserted upon approach, black bandage like dress lifting her ample chest and cinching in her petite waist before moving down to the curve of her hips that were wide from various childbirths. It was paired with some heels, and all the woman wore besides the painted artistry of her make-up.

Evelyn tended to be a bit more conservative when she left but free here she could display herself as she most enjoyed. Though, thankfully perhaps for the woman in front of her, the chiffon fabric used had been layered so many times the garment was, at least, not sheer, a rarity for Evelyn when in the club.

"How Doran can stand your exquisite gaze on him without crumbling before you is astounding," Evelyn spoke like honey. The barbs to her large red horns that grew from her temples suggested she was perhaps less honey and more bee than she was letting on however. "Men can be so...weak willed in the presence of a beautiful woman. Should you prefer you can set your eyes on me."

"I have missed you," Bella insisted as the two took to one another's company in the small glass conservatory filled with poisonous plants, the moon from the nights' sky illuminating the vampire's pallid skin, while the flickering candles illuminated the warmth of nymphs deep tone. It was similar to the many nights spent together prior in the St John's Estate in Withermore, but, at the very least, Bellamy was a new woman, not the sorrowful girl she had been upon turning. Not wholly at least. Moments seemed to flick over her, Derya no doubt noticed that despite the large bed in Bella's private room, the woman's coffin was still what seemed primarily used, a large blanket often spilling out of it's side, and she went nearly everywhere with two large wolves.

Currently the two were alone however. Silk, the quiet one of the two wolves, had likely taken rest by Valentin's feet as he wored, while Quilt was probably running the grounds in search of jackalopes to dine on. The glass conservatory was exclusively in the use of the two women. So Derya could work, while Bella embroidered, and both could speak freely.

"I think perhaps I would not have held Valentin at a distance so long if I'd had your guidance," she spoke of the man she had befriended, though in some ways mothered. "But I did fear you would be as angry as I presumed he would be for what I had done."

The fire.

Bella had worn a charm for years to keep Valentin at bay, afraid her destruction of his life's work and home would enrage him, or at least give the tempered man a reason to seek out and kill her, or worse, if any love had grown from him because she had never been sure then that it had, that her actions had destroyed that. For Derya, Bella worried less on the genuine nature of the woman's friendship but knew her own goals had aligned with Valentin's, and that Derya was not the sort of woman one wanted as an enemy. To hide from one meant hiding from both and so she had. In truth she would not have been angry had Derya wished to kill her, yet it seemed she did not.

"I truly needed your wisdom in many ways," she began, thin fingers with long nails in a shade slightly grayer than her complexion ran a needle through silk slowly, repeating the action while she spoke. "I imagine he did not tell you what caused me to break my charm," Bella whispered despite their isolation.

Keeping to her metal chair while she worked Bella did lean nearer to the other woman. "I had been writing...intimate letters with a djinn." Bella could not flush and yet her cheeks filled as though she were, fullness rising to them, green eyes giddy with girlish excitement. The woman Bella had been in the past, that Derya no doubt recalled, had reacted violently when a man even looked at her with implication, had cried that she would never be able to be loved, had taken more than a year to voluntarily reach for Valentin. Now she giggled at the notion of her intimate letters, excited to share with her friend.

"Fantasies and confessions. The sorts of letters hundreds have probably sent you." Derya was stunning, after all. Smart and deadly. Perhaps she was especially beautiful to Bellamy because she had some of the same qualities that Valentin did, both smart and determined and...soft with her. Derya had always been understanding, and Bella suspected it was because she too understood the pain of being a woman alone and trying to survive. Both could now thrive.

"Perhaps if you had been near you would have stopped me from being so reckless with my want as to pen it down and send it."