heartbreaker

Çaska Lomidze — all the time i'm grateful all the time i'm sexy and i'm kind and i'm pretty when i cry

[caskalomidze]

Shalaçaska Lomidze

Nicknames: Çaska, Ças/Sash (it's 'Sahsh-kuh') Occupation: Student Age: Forever 21 (born 3rd century somewhere) Sexuality: Pansexual Species: Vampire Clan: Lomidze

Unlike sisters Svetlana and Viktoria, dear Çaska was never given the choice to choose eternity. Turned in her sleep, the youngest of the three siblings has struggled through century after century of dealing with youthful emotions charged to the extreme through the vampiric curse. If Svetalana is the hand of their family's legacy - strong and proactive and ready to strike when needed, and Viktoria is the head - wise and observant and inquisitive and thoughtful, then young Çaska is its bleeding heart. Her greatest weakness is love, infatuation. To feel loved, to love, she falls fast and hard and so so often can't bring herself to think of letting go. The result is often new vampires - not one here or there every fifty years or so, but a slew of angry spurned lovers who create problems for her family and their interests. Because of this, Çaska has been locked away two separate times over the centuries, most recently in the 1960s. While the first of these time-outs lasted just over a century, this second time has been much shorter lived, and once again her sister Viktoria is the one to wake her after Svetlana reveals the location of their sister's sarcophagus. Only time will tell if Çaska can see it in herself to forgive Lana for a second betrayal, or if Port Leiry itself survives its own encounter with Çaska Lomidze. She takes up the play-acted role of a student at Tideview University, night classes only for now, unfortunately, though she's never had problems working within her means to act every bit the social butterfly of the family.

Connections under the cut!

Victims: While most of the vampires Sash created during her first wave of wild indiscretion are gone and dusted (likely by her sisters' hands), there may be a few stragglers from her more recent wave of bad decisions. Maybe they still love her, maybe they hate her. Down for existing characters OR new ones!

The Sisters Lomidze - 2/2 Çaska's sisters are sancrosanct. Yes, she might have her beef with Lana's not infrequent betrayals, and yes maybe Viktoria is so smart she makes her feel kind of stupid, but those are her hangup with her family and if anyone else were to go after them for any of it Çaska would rip them to bits.

How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? Çaska has eternally struggled with being 'the young one'. She feels her sisters use it as a cudgel to dismiss her sometimes, and regardless of the era, it is a constant sting to be dismissed by people as a young person with no experience in the ways of the world. Still, she does adapt quickly to the youth of the time, whenever 'the time' is, and so maybe it's just a case of if the shoe fits, wear it? Fellow learners from Tideview, people from around Port Leiry, etc.

[tomaspriestley]

She has a beautiful smile, too. So very white, and clean like the snow. Meanwhile, his own teeth are half a breath from chattering, yet the alcohol's yet to flush through him. So there's stlll a faint warmth lingering just underneath his sweater. Fingers dance on her arm, and it’s grounding. Just enough to keep his mind occupied with the important things — like her kindness, and her question.

Oh boy. He gets dizzy for a second, and he pulls on her arm, before shaking it off. There’s nothing to say that he thinks is gonna sound cool. The ice is stealing his thunder, already.

But he’s convinced she isn’t gonna let him fall. “Weeell I—“ Tideview he can talk about. “Si, yeah! Journa — journa-lism. I write. I like to write. Paper. Pen pen. Stories about those hiding — sneaky sleuthsss in our world, mhm?” Nobody ever knows, but he doesn’t mind tonight. Because one person will, and then eventually, so will two.

He knows he should focus on his work and college, and that he’s got some neat followers who want an update on the Conspiracy. Words don’t mend a heart with holes in it, but maybe Tomás can try patch it with other truths. “— y tu? You look so lovely —“ a wide grin, like she’d given him, “—you could be on the cover of Vogue.”

[caskalomidze]

Çaska keeps him steady with little effort.

"Ohhh," she replies as he explains and she pats at his arm. It's patronizing, but she doesn't want to dismiss it anymore than she wants to jump headlong into giving up the game.

"Aw, that's so sweet." She smiles to him. "Fashion," she says - it's a lie. Her coursework here is whatever she wants it to be. In this way she's gleaned countless skills and professions over the years. "I prefer to be behind a camera, not in front of it." Also untrue.

She stops the both of them. "You seem sad," she says, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. "Are you?"

[nadiaholme]

"You might not be someone who kills for fun or without care, but you do still kill, and you do still feed." Nadia doesn't turn yet, nor are her words laced with any sort of judgement. "I would be stupid if I weren't afraid." But there are layers to the fear, ones that Caska has caught on to immediately.

She wants to dispute it, but the words don't come, and her lips feel tight as they press together.

Of course, though, she has no choice in the matter on whether or not she'll obfuscate the truth, because their eyes lock together and she feels that familiar feeling of compulsion wash over her. She searches the vampire's eyes, lips twisting and twitching against one another. The truth.

The truth is that.. "I do not like the terror that comes with fearing for my soul." She reaches up, and takes Caska's hand where it hovered in her hair - and does nothing with it except to hold it, to play with her fingers while their hands rest in her lap. It's a comfort, even though her skin is ice cold. "There is something exhilarating in the fact that you're a vampire, though. No use denyin' that."

She breaks eye contact, and looks down at their hands, a frown now pulling at her face. "I don't like being afraid, though. I've lived most of my life afraid of.. many things." Her father is at the very front of that line. "I don't like that I can't even entertain the idea of love without my heart dropping into my stomach, or my hands starting to shake."

Even now, while she touches Caska's hand, her own shake.

[caskalomidze]

Çaska listens to Nadia expound on things - and she feels that tender swell in her heart that she always feels - almost like her heart forces a beat. It infuriates her though, when she makes it so obvious, the rigors placed on her by the yoke of faith. It's detestable in all men and women, and Nadia's struggle with it is no exception.

Çaska tips her chin back up, looking into her eyes after she laments further. There's no more compulsion here, just a steely blue gaze. "No, no, don't look away."

She smirks. "That's a lot of words to say yes." Her smile deepens, but she doesn't let go, even taking up Nadia's other hand.

"Your turn."

[viktorialomidze]

Viktoria keeps walking slowly forward, and cuts her eyes to the side to view her sister in the periphery. Port Leiry has ground to a halt, it seems. The city itself is buried. Sash's friends are bored. Viktoria herself has fallen into domesticating herself with the human pet she keeps. All that's interesting for her has been the idea of self-surgery.

The ribs would be delivered to the grave-witch soon.

She keeps slowly walking towards the priest as Caska sings the hymn. She could easily just remove head from body, but she blinks past him so her sister can see him from the front. A hand rests on his shoulder as he whimpers. "I hope you find solace with your own church mouse, then. But yes, a game." She tilts her head. "So, daughter, would you like a choice cut to sup on?"

A fingernail traces over his throat, down his arm, over his wrist. "I think it'd be fun to leave his entrails decorating the aisles."

[caskalomidze]

The priest sweats between the two of them, Viktoria running fingers along his skin. Çaska, for her part, simply stares into his eyes - wizened and foggy, dulling green with the blue hint of cataract a good life, he's lived. Or comfortable at least. Or maybe not. Maybe he is tortured by guilt. Maybe his faith is what keeps him going. Or maybe he is one of very many vile hypocrites that've dotted his order since time immemorial.

Or maybe he's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It doesn't matter, Çaska thinks, as she sinks teeth into his wrist - sucking out draught after draught of wizened old blood, her eyes, shadowed with the stuff, casting from his pained features to the softness of her sister's, juxtaposed against the heinous nature of her words.

"Like a garland," she says, lathing blood from her lips. "You always did have the eye for decoration."

Oh, how she'd missed this sort of frolicking.

[tomaspriestley]

There's a sudden, cool breeze that steadies him, right before it has him fumbling out to catch himself. There's nothing but her to reach out for, so he tries to both not overstep, whilst gripping and releasing her arm. The snowflakes fall on her nose, and she looks like a saint carved out of snowfall, smiling at him. Maybe laughing. But, enjoying, nonetheless. He wanted to lick the speck. He doesn't.

He pinches his fingers together, and smiles back at her. Hiccups. "A li'tle bit."

Tomás doesn't remember it now, but the last time he let the beers run their course, he stumbled into some guys bed, and woke up apologising for it. It'd been nothing (quite literally, he'd stayed dressed), but damn it had been embarrassing.

"Saaaasha?" He tries it out on his tongue, and he does want to walk with her because the ground is very close to him, with every step he tries to take. "I think — si?" He blinks, and kicks feet back into the snow to get himself upright, once again. Between jumbled confidence, and trying to keep his eyes open, he tells her where he lives, and asks how far they are.

She seems nice. "You are —" he swallows, patting her arm, "— lovely, y bonita. Lo siento — sorry. I—" he pats his pockets, thinking he swore he brought water with him from the bar, but he comes up empty, "I'm good, okay." He bravely kicks through the snow again, finger pointing ahead, announcing (after a hiccup): "We walk."

[caskalomidze]

Poor thing, she thinks. Freezing and drunk - who knows which or what sorrows motivate this. There is a flash of red in her mind - one that reminds her she could simply put this sadling out of its misery while filling herself all the same. Instead, she helps him stumble out of the snow and onto the salt-gritted concrete walking path. He weighs nothing, and she smiles for the feathers hanging off her arm.

They stroll, lightly, after he tells her - to the best of his ability - where he lives. It's not far, she thinks - but she hasn't yet decided if he'll make it there.

"You're sweet," she repays the compliment, tilting her head with her wide smile on full display.

"Tell me about yourself," she coos in the cold, keeping him steady, keeping him upright. "Do you go here? Tideview, I mean."

[nadiaholme]

She lets the question sit for just a moment, because what is she to say to that? Caska is over a thousand years old, an immortal being, and locked in a state of immaturity that not many are - and yet still holds wisdom beyond anyone else's years. Nadia watches the snow fall against the window, watches the wind blow it away.

"I'd be a fool to say no." Anyone would be. "Of course you frighten me." There are layers to it, she knows, but she doesn't know how to phrase it or even bring up the depths of what frightens her on a good day. Even now that her father is dead, the words he ingrained in her mind from a young age still stick.

Even when she thinks she's fully healed, there are moments of weakness. "I'm scared that you're going to get bored and toss me aside after you've bled me dry." Her voice is quiet, but it doesn't waver. She could reach into the nothingness and pull out the knowledge she needs about Caska, but she's able to keep a tight lid on it. It helps, somewhat. "And I'm terrified of the way I react when I'm with you. Terrified of where my soul will go after you're done with me."

[caskalomidze]

The admission doesn't sting - many and more throughout her centuries of life have confessed the same. There were times she would delight in it, and others, in more depressive slumps, where she would agonize over it.

"Oh, sweet thing." She says, leaning in. "I'm no ravening monster who kills with abandon." Partially true - she'd dispatched her sister's Sireling's little distraction - but that had been irritation and warning more than wanton slaughter.

But it's the second part that makes Çaska's head tilt with curiosity, makes her hand thread a finger into a red lock of hair. "Because I'm a vampire?" She asks. "Because I'm a woman?"

Çaska leans in, very close, locks her eyes onto Nadia's. "I'm changing my question. Do you like that terror? You must tell the truth."

[oksana-raevskii]

"Mmhm. Aoife is here somewhere, hiding from me, perhaps." She laughs at the prospect, though she knows that the woman in question would not be hiding from her. They are simply both biding their time until the right moment. And that moment will come deliciously.

Oksana barks out a laugh at Caska's surprise. That had been her reaction, too. Pure, unfiltered disgust. The idea of hearing someone else call Vanessa hers, though. It delights her. "As I said, beyond foul. A disgusting mark upon her name and good looks - but she will come around. I promise you that." Her smile is pure mischief, "But I would love to wreak a little havoc on the dog's little pack. That would be quite fun."

She continues to pet her friend, "Frankie will know what to do, yes. Or perhaps we are all suffering in a pit of our own making. We should make messes again. I miss that."

[caskalomidze]

Çaska tut-tuts. She's never had a head for the sort of skullduggery their kind tends to make for themselves. She understands why it needs to be there - nobody wants another Transylvania, after all - but leave her out of all that tedium. Certainly she can't be so hard to weed out.

The discussion shifts though, and Sash visibly squirms. "I don't know- rolling in the mud with werewolves," she shakes her head, screws her expression up. "Dangerous and dirty work. They're all feral, even the smart ones."

But then Oksana calls her on it - harkens back to their heyday of being a right trio of terror. It makes one think.

"As do I," she ponders, nestling further into Sana. "Hm."

[frnoialles]

There's no replacement in my life for you. If that was true, then why did it not make her dead heart flutter? Where were the butterflies flapping their tiny wings in her belly? Frankie's heard those words before, from the mouth of a dirty pirate she did not want to speak the name of ever again, and they've been nothing but lies, lies, lies.

Still riding the ugly waves of rage and despair, Frankie stormed toward her closet — a spacious room, gleaming white from floor to ceiling, lined with glass doors protecting decades upon decades of fashion obsessions.

"You have a banging body that makes things look good on you, babe" she said, already rifling through hangers, "but that doesn’t make your clothes nice."

Above them, lights lined up the ceiling like constellations, shining down on the sheer fabric of a baby pink dress, strapless and soft to the touch. Frankie liked dressing her up, as though she was a porcelain doll in her collection.

She crossed back over, hands settling possessively onto Sash’s shoulders, turning her around and slipping fingers down to the zipper at her back. "It’s not you, Sash," Frankie muttered, peeling the fabric down inch by inch. "It’s literally everyone else trying to ruin my life. Mean mommy, Garrick—" She made a face immediately after saying his name, disgust evident across her features. What a stupid name.

Her fingertips ghosted over bare shoulders, tracing spots. "I just wanna be with someone who makes me feel good."

[caskalomidze]

There is a part of Çaska that enjoys this - Françoise taking charge, moving her around like this; it's a reprieve from the dominion of her elder sister - a sort of controlling that's affirming more than frustrating. Frankie peels her, and she can't help but laugh at first, but then the further confession comes - and that smile fades into something much less whimsical and jovial.

Çaska stands there, born out to Frankie, and reaches up to play her fingertips along the curves of her jaw. "What's he done?"

Çaska Lomidze's heart belongs to many - it always has, it always will, but there are only enough to count on one hand, people she might go to war for, and one of them was staring into her eyes right now, hurting.

Red flashes cast beams of heat through her mind - Garrick had been Frankie's friend - and it was that tether that left Çaska to suffer him. It's a tether easily cut on her end, if needs be. "We used to be... a menace, Frankie - monsters. Do you remember that Salon? We painted the walls red."

She leans her head into Frankie's neck. "We've all become toothless- robbed of our fangs. Tell me this Praetorius worm needs to die and you know I'll bleed him myself into a cup for you." A soft kiss, behind the ear. "You know Oksana would too."

[viktorialomidze]

"The chapels are the most beautiful, I'd have to agree." The larger ones often led themselves to more corruption at the end of the day. Though, she'd definitely found her fair share of local pastors and priests leading their flock astray for their own horrible sense of self. Viktoria moves over to the pew, and picks up her own hymnal. Horrible music. She tosses it behind her.

The priest stumbles over another prayer in answer to her little sister, and Viktoria rolls her eyes.

"My churchmouse would have started praying herself. I haven't had the ability to rid her of the delusions they raised her with." Though, she does like the idea of letting her keep them and sending her further down the path of depravity. "She's too scared for our games. What of your escapades? I know your friends are in town. And that one Augury girl."

She pauses. Taps her lower lip. "Didn't you kill Boy?"

[caskalomidze]

Blinking-fast, Çaska catches the hymnal book, cracking open and holding it, very stiffly, against her bos', scanning the lines with a sneer and lets out a few chirps of sing-song notage as her sister speaks. Idly she shrugs. "Your strength is boundless, I'm always so tempted to simply pluck annoying thoughts out of their heads, at least the egregious ones."

"We're all very bored," she follows up, still flipping through the music pages. "Fran is listless, 'Sana is hungry for revenge..." Thoughts of the witch pop up then, and she rolls her eyes. "The Augury girl is her own sort of church mouse." Small, cute, easily held in the hands, extremely fragile.

"I didn't kill him, I let him go!" She protests, scandalized, shaking her head before taking a large, false breath, if only so that she might project better as she sight-reads from the hymnbook.

"All who hunger, gather gladly; Holy manna is our bread. Come from wilderness and wandering, Here, in truth, we will be fed. You that yearn for days of fullness, All around us is our food."

The last line sees her fangs stir as she grins at the priest. It's all nicely sight-read, and all nicely sung, but as that last passage echoes off the inside of the stone and glass, she looks up from the book, planting it back in the slot behind the wooden bench before her, strolling from behind the pew at their captive audience.

"We should play a game," she says, skipping up the aisle. "These folks do so love to play pretend." Çaska looks back to Viktoria. "Let's play house, Viktoria, like we used to - you can be the father, I the daughter..." she turns to the priest, adjusting his stole. "And this can be dinner."

[nadiaholme]

Nadia tentatively follows Sash to the bed but she doesn't have a chance to sit before she's made to. She lets out a soft noise of surprise, but sits on the edge of it with her hand resting gently on her knees, while she touches the tips of her fingers together. None of this is really.. normal, but it does bring back memories of the only girl she'd ever kissed. It started much like this - sitting in their old shed in the back while rain poured down on the tin roof. Her heart had fluttered and soared so loudly that day. And it came crashing down within the next.

Caska touches her hair and shoulders, and she stares at the window, glowing with the reflections of the lights outside against fresh snow. It should make her miss home. Instead it makes her wonder what else is there to this storm - and why she'd seen it in her visions. It would be easy to open her mind up again, to peer into knowledge of Caska and the storm, but she does not want to writhe on the floor with migraines and seizures if the cost is too great.

"I've never played." She murmurs, turning her head back towards the vampire. "I was.. I was thinking we share being sheltered, I suppose. You should have all these experiences, and you don't. I'm an adult woman and I couldn't tell you the first thing about what it's like to have a first date or a best friend that stays with you or a family as close knit as yours seems to be." She turns her head back to the front and lets out a soft sigh.

"Let's do the game, it could take our minds off of things."

[caskalomidze]

Close knit almost makes her laugh, but she doesn't. Nadia doesn't seem the sort to like being laughed at, and so she lets it stay the blossomed smile on her cheeks, working threads of her hair together as she lets her finish speaking.

"Alright then, Truth or dare?"

Truth, Nadia says after a few quiet breaths, and Çaska ponders; thinks of what she knows about this human. Sheltered upbringing, endlessly un-confident, over-quiet.

"Have you ever..." Çaska lingers, fingers threading the pleated braid as she hums - then her eyes brighten - something simple and slow and illuminating settles on her tongue. "Do I frighten you?"

[nadiaholme]

The snow outside feels like its coming down almost as hard as rainfall, making it hard to see anything out of the window. She'd seen plenty of snowfall growing up, had a few blizzards here and there, but nothing quite as bad as this. It almost makes old anxieties start to shift in her stomach.

"I've never had a sleepover either." She hears the tone shift in Caska, and turns from the window to face her. "Order a pizza with.." Nadia finds herself laughing, "A ton of extra garlic sauce."

It's ridiculous, but she knows it won't harm the vampire - if anything, it's more of a silly joke. "Everything I know about them, I know from movies I watched after I left my home the first time." She holds up her fingers to count on them, "Pizza, movies, silly games, braiding each others' hair. I don't know, I'd always thought it sounded fun when I heard girls in school talking about it."

She'd been invited, but never allowed to go. "It's kind of interesting that we share some experiences despite being so different."

[caskalomidze]

Çaska's eyebrows bounce in a bit of devilish thought as she navigates through a pizza order, but she does give a scoff and a look of false-disapproval at the joke; though it's a smile curling her lips, not a frown.

At first, she thinks Nadia's talking about Vampires, but then realizes it's sleepovers she's expounding on, and as she sends the order out, she tosses her phone onto her bed. "Silly games. Like what?" She smirks. Spin the bottle? Seven minutes in heaven? Çaska moves to her bed, sitting on the side, one leg up, and beckons Nadia to sit by her, holding hands out and snapping and wriggling her fingers. "Tell me what we share, I'll braid your hair. Wait! I've an idea!" Her thoughst drift back to a different storm.

Çaska's hands rest on Nadia's shoulder after she moves to her in a sudden blink, impatient and steering her to sit on the bed instead, sitting behind her again, pulling her hair back gently, separating a few strands. "We should play truth or dare."

[caskalomidze]

o3﹕a  text  sent  out  of  worry ./ Frankie

sash: where have you been it's been ages sash: frankieeeee i need to vent about idiot humans sash: frankie save me sash: save me, frankie sash: frankie save me - sash: WHERE ARE YOU. ARE YOU DEAD? sash: simply can't with these idiot professors in this idiot college acting as if they know more than me sash: stupidity should be painful, is what i'm saying. like sun in the sky, i was there, you fake. - sash: FRANKIE ARE YOU EVEN ALIVE? SHALL IS CALL A SEARCH PARTY FRANÇOISE?

/@frnoialles

[oksana-raevskii]

"I'm not saying it all has to be vengeance and ire. A little destruction for fun is always a good time." That subject doesn't linger, though, as Caska continues on - and Oksana is content to listen about one of her dearest friends escapades and new loves. She allows her own mind to wander, spinning its plates and it likes to do - remembering what it was like to love and care and hate someone so close by. She's close by now, but not in her lap. And that is a crime, in her eyes.

"Well, dearest котенок, why not enjoy said ginger-nut while you have her?" Love that ends in misfortune and death is the most passionate, anyways. She does not see the problem laid out before her. She holds Caska close, plays with her hair. "I think you should allow yourself attachment."

Oksana hums, though. "Currently on hold while I gather allies. I seek to kill the current leader of Karnstein and take my place as the rightful leader of the clan, but I cannot do it alone. As for Vanessa - I need to convince her of my love. Again. She's obsessed with some brute of a wolf. Foul, if you ask me. Mostly planning. Waiting."

[caskalomidze]

They lie there, curled up against a cold outside that seems strong enough even to reach their old, unfeeling bones. "Karnstein?" She asks, puzzled and incredulous; she hadn't even been aware that Karnstein held presence here, let alone power. A part of her wonders to ask what Oksana would do with said power - wonders at angling this moment into something politically interesting, but even with the prospect of earning a boon from Viktoria she finds the politics boring - the gossip on 'Sana's perennial flower Vanessa however does pique her mood.

"A werewolf?" She sputters, expression pulling into something that's a twist of disgust and surprise. "Your Vanessa, kissing dogs?"

She can't help but laugh - burying the side of her head into Oksana. "Waiting, eugh." the moment falls quiet and she thinks - of her struggles with witches and her addiction - not to love itself, but to the feeling of falling in love; for no static, settled love will ever truly touch the one she's already felt for centuries.

Then she thinks about Oksana's endless struggles with the apples of her own eyes - and then; "We should find Frankie," she motions. "See what she's up to." Mayhaps Noialles is in a funk of her own, mayhaps she isn't and can pull them both out of this boredom.

[caskalomidze]

∗ 19﹕ a suggestive text . - aria

to: racetrack girl sash: hey! if u wanna little bit of a spicy party there's a thing going on at soleil tonight. bring a friend or two for dinner ~♥

[frnoialles]

"Excuse moi, chéri? Am I not the only burning flame in your heart?” Everyone was out to break her heart, apparently. Ungrateful, stupid little vampires, thinking she was someone they could toss aside once they’d had their fun. Frankie turned dramatically, the only way she knew how to respond to even the smallest inconvenience. A tantrum thrown, like when her mother refusing to let her wear her dresses, and shove her feet in into diamond shoes gifted by some royal man in a funny wig.

Her part time lover kissed her, and Frankie wiped it away immediately, both because it was ruining her makeup and because Caska was dripping snow all over her designer shoes like a wet dog. "Sash," she whined, "I’m not redoing my makeup, and you are not making me cry in non waterproof mascara."

Frankie puffed out her cheeks, arms folding tight across her chest. She was tired of feeling like some sad, poor person. Was this what life felt like for people with no money? Depressing, and embarassing. "No—actually, you know what? Get your things. We’re going out." What else was she going to do, cry on her lovers shoulder? "But we need to fix… whatever that is you’re wearing." She gestured vaguely at the outfit, scandalized. "What even is that?"

[caskalomidze]

"Come now, Frankie you know there's no replacement in my life for you." Surely she isn't upset about... Çaska can't help but narrow her eyes in confusion.

She studies her fellow vampire - among some of the oldest in this city, by her measure - and can't help but shake her head in a bit of confusion; Frankie feels like her mind is boomeranging all over the room - first upset, then ready to weep, and now... a date?

A night out at least. Sash watches her pace the room before tilting her head to present a sidelong stare. "Are we?" Frankie gives no quarter for argument though. "It's... fast fashion."

"I have nice things," she says, feeling the silent and judging eye of Françoise Noialles reigning down on her from on high. She feels, however, like she's about to become a fashion experiment - not the worst outcome if it helps Frankie feel better - though she has other tactics for that.

"If I've made you feel outcast, it's not my intention." She lets Noialles tug her along, worried at what she's missing here.

[flashfanged]

It isn't egregious as they let their food tug them in by belt loops, as they let her kiss them. Just a practiced motion. Ears focused on her pulse, on the beat of her heart as their mouth moves in a mindless dance. This isn't what they are after even if they lead her to believe so. It is barely a shove, something human, controlled and the woman's back hits tiled wall, their hand planted beside her head as they lock eyes.

"Be quiet and it will all be over soon." they murmur. "nod if you understand" When she does so, they smile, let her know that she's good and fasten their lips to her neck. Kisses are trailed, finding the spot they like best, eyes filling with hunger and sinking fangs into that thrumming pulse and then they start to drink, and drink, and drink. The woman starts to slump and they move to hold her up. She tastes good and the pit in their stomach refuses to fill.

They make a huff in the back of their throat, biting down a bit harder.

Gentle, you need to be gentle.

Their grip tightens, she's starting to become heavier the more they take, they can feel the way she's gone slack. Finally with a struggle they pull away. Staring at her with dark eyes that scan, ears searching, and there it is, a still there pulse. Faint, heart struggling and they groan at the misstep. But she's intact. There is at least that. They'll need another. The hunger is still there, just satiated enough. They wipe a hand over their face, lower her to the floor and stare at the wall. They didn't kill her, that was good enough. They could control themself, at least that much.

[caskalomidze]

The stall door opens, and Çaska's sucking blood from the corner of her own mouth, her prey dazed and sleeping happily behind her. "Good, her heart beats, her head firmly atop her shoulders."

Sash leaves the stall, shutting it gently as she crosses to the relatively opulent vanity provided by the restroom, tonguing pink from her teeth and red from the insides of her lips before pulling out a tube of gloss to reapply.

"And that is how it's done, isn't it?" She smiles, head turning towards her clanmate with an approving but inquisitive air.

The door to the bathroom begins to open, and Çaska's at it in a blink; the door slamming shut under the strength of her arm. "Tragedy in here," she says loudly, her voice switching over to something more modern. "Total crashout - cheater, you know - just need a moment."

Somebody curses foul through the door, enough to make her jaw drop. The nerve of some people.

She smiles to Madison. "Still hungry?" A smile, fangs filling in their place. "Practice makes perfect, after all."

[viktorialomidze]

Viktoria clasps her hands behind her back as they stroll into the church. The architecture is, as usual and unfortunately, beautiful. The night is not so dark with the snow filling the streets and sidewalks - so the reflective lights of stars and moon bounce from the white into the stained glass. It's an almost magical sight - something that would make idiots feel as though they're not alone in the world.

"I was more speaking of the whole 'burst into flames' myth of it." She's amused, though, and it's clear in her tone. She watches Caska do her compulsion of the old priest and leans against one of the pews as he starts to rattle off his crimes - working from the most recent to his earliest. She's not surprised by the words that come from his mouth - most of these men are corrupt to the core.

"I highly doubt it," She finally says after considering him for a moment, "But I wouldn't doubt that there are hunters around. They've been prowling so often lately."

[caskalomidze]

"I miss old cathedrals," she says, looking around. "The ones lain brick by brick with nary a whir machinery - they felt more important." She sits on a pew, picking up the hymnal. "Oh! Or the little chapels you'd see on the countryside, all lopsided and crooked - those ones oft felt the most real."

She looks at the priest, who, bereft of further self-incrimination, has begun reciting prayers, looking between the two of them.

"Is he answering?" She asks casually, before turning to her sister with curiosity, addressing her next. "We should've brought your little churchmouse then. She'd have gotten a spin out of all this, hm?"