#sisters!!!!!!!!

carmilla has left the room, morana not long after her. striga turns her head to peer at lenore from across the table, still in her seat, a severe frown working at her mouth. she's not shy about her own displeasure; what good does a creature like her have for niceties? in silence, she considers lenore.

lenore, of all her blood-kin, is the most puzzling of the bunch. striga had written her off, at one time—no better than the runt of the litter. time with lenore has proven that theory wrong, of course. but they stand here on the precipice of something much bigger, in the wake of carmilla's grand and imperial plans, wrapped up in her need to take the world in her fist. striga can't ever say she went to bed wanting to bend humanity over at the waist, but she won't pretend there isn't a part of her that froths at the mouth when presented with the prospect.

not lenore. lenore is soft. she plays with her food and gets teary-eyed when it weeps and begs for its life. she is delicate in ways that do not suit her—don't suit any of their kind. this alone is what makes lenore so useful. striga often wonders if the last dregs of humanity have been scraped out of her with a sharp-edged spoon. she drums her fingers across the tabletop, all while lenore sits there, the two of them looking at each other. what advice can she offer that lenore would ever take?

bluntly: "you will. you already have. why stop now?" it's not that lenore plays at complete innocence. she could never afford to, to live and work alongside the rest of them—carmilla especially. she pushes herself back from the table, and is ready to leave it at that... but the string of curiosity has been plucked, somewhere, at the back of her head. lenore so rarely speaks of herself. for as soft-petaled as she comes across, she's surprisingly guarded. "why, lenore? they'll all hurt you without a thought." she doesn't say it to be callous. it's just the truth.