wishing the moon would be her only friend

they're all gone, she thought wishing as she swam, that her moon would be her only friend but he too is swimming away an inch more every year...

[robyn-atwood]

Robyn blows on the hot chocolate in her cup, trying to cool it before she takes a sip. It’s good, just what she needs and hopefully it will help soothe her enough that she’ll be able to find some sleep tonight. Though she doubts it will be restful, even if she does. “This is really good,” she compliments the chef, giving the girl a warm smile as she looks up at her. She leans against the counter, tugging at her sweatshirt to try and warm up here in the kitchen. The house is a drafty one and tonight it feels just as restless as she is. Colder than it should be, even with the weather outside. Noisy and energetic and she can’t tell if it’s because of all the new housemates or because sometimes the house just gets that way. 

"I’m doing alright," she answers. It’s a timid answer, almost. She’s normally good at faking her moods or if she’s in a poor one, she knows when to excuse herself as to not let it rub off on other people. But tonight, she’s walked into this. She can’t just take her hot chocolate and go, it would be poor manners. She gives a soft shrug, looking down at the mug in her hand. "I just have trouble sleeping sometimes. I really should be drinking tea to help out, but I couldn’t pass up this." 

[elenafontainex]

While Elena beams at the compliment, she really can't take much credit. All she did was heat up some milk and stir in a powdery chocolate mix before throwing in some marshmallows, but the wolf appreciates the sentiment all the same. She loves compliments, giving, receiving, or overhearing. "I'm glad you like it!" Elena says, not wanting to dismiss her compliment by going on about how it really wasn't something she tried hard to make. Looking down at the light brown drink hiding beneath the white marshmallows that were melting away, she couldn't resist taking another sip, even it was still a little hotter than she would have liked.

Looking back up to Robyn to give her her full attention, her smile falters just slightly when the blonde admits that she's doing alright. Not great, or good, but alright. At her explanation, though, Elena understands. It's tough to sleep sometimes, and the brunette knows restless nights all too well. "Well, I like to think hot chocolate works just as well as tea." She gives a small grin, taking yet another sip of the warm drink that is doing a great job of thawing her out. "Long walks in the middle of the night usually do the trick for me... but it usually works better when it's warmer." She tells the other woman, glancing out the window in hopes to see the stars. They're a little too close to the city, though. It looks like a blank canvas, but that's nice as well. Returning her gaze, she has a question on her mind. "Why do you think you have trouble sleeping?"

[robyn-atwood]

It’s late and Robyn can’t sleep again. She can blame it on the excitement of all the new housemates all she wants, but if she’s being honest with herself, she knows it’s not just that. She knows it’s memories resurfacing, it’s encounters that aren’t pleasant, it’s a handful of things that she thought she’d be okay with dealing with again, but turns out she’s not. She’d been trying to call it an early night, work before dawn tomorrow, but she doubts she’ll be able to sleep this early or with these thoughts on her mind. So she heads downstairs to try and grab a glass of milk and see if that’ll help. 

She doesn’t expect to find Elena in the kitchen and when the girl offers her a steaming mug of hot chocolate, it brings a smile to her face, nodding her head at her. “Wow, I think you read my mind,” she says, heading over to where the girl is leaned up against the counter. She leans next to her, glad at least that it’s someone pleasant and nice down here. Though most of the new tenants are. After the initial hustle and bustle of everyone moving in, it had died down pretty nicely. Robyn thought maybe it was time for a pizza night. “Thank you. How are you settling in? Everything going alright?” 

[elenafontainex]

She's glad it's the pretty blonde, Robyn, although she probably would have been happy with any other tenant, too! Elena just remembers her being as sweet as can be, with a lovely bedroom, and a soft voice. There have still got to be others in this huge house that she hasn't met yet, there's got to be. The werewolf remembers seeing a few strangers around, but only once... maybe twice. She wonders for a moment if Robyn has met them all, but the question fades at the sound of her voice. "Did I? Great minds must think alike." She gives a quick grin, before watching Robyn claim the other mug.

Looking over at the illuminated clock across the room, she realizes just how late it is. She knows why she is awake, but it makes her wonder what's kept Robyn up. Maybe she's just another night owl. "Any time." Elena says quickly in reply to her thanks, before taking a few seconds to think about her question. "Settling in just great, I think! This place is so much better than motel rooms. Going so well." She explains, before taking a sip of her hot chocolate... that's still a little too hot, but Elena refrains from making a scene about it. "What about you? Not the settling in, but how are you?"

[elenafontainex]

New York was a hell of a place to get lost in, but Elena hadn't exactly considered herself to be lost. She was on the hunt to find a job that would increase the amount of crumbled bills in her pocket - a search that hadn't exactly gone as planned. There was no one to blame but herself, of course, but she hardly had enough time to worry about something to blame. Spending six hours out and about in New York, well, that was certainly something else. Her mind had been completely consumed by the buildings, the little shops, the people, the cars. Everything was worth interest, and the only thing that had Elena finding her way back to her new home, is when she realized that it was dark.

Not only was it dark, but it was getting pretty late! Never one to worry, however, she quietly entered the Linden House, with one craving and one craving only. The winters in this area were pretty brutal, apparently, and Elena wanted coffee to help warm her up. Although at this hour, coffee didn't feel like the best idea - so hot chocolate it was! Heating up a little too much, Elena still grabbed a handful of marshmallows to throw into the steaming liquid before pouring it into a mug. Distracted in thoughts about nothing in particular, only the sound of approaching footsteps perked her ears up, and she turned to look at who it was. "Hey. Want some?" She asked immediately, gesturing over to another mug full of hot chocolate.

[jason-kealoha]

"Just a hunch, but you know, at the end of the day, I’m a drama queen, honey," Jason laughs, looking around the room. The smirk which finds its way onto his face is nothing short of amused, but there is still a part of him wondering if everyone around him could possibly be dead too. It wouldn’t be impossible. And, hell, wouldn’t that be funny? Two ghosts talking to one another and pretending they’re alive. Sounds like some sort of comedy sketch. "But I think whether it’s fun or not depends on the sort of spirit we’ve got here. Not all of them are Casper, you know," he remarks, thinking back to the cartoon on which he had grown up. It’s morbid now, however, thinking that the kid had to die to become the friendly ghost he was.

"Rome, Georgia. Never been there," he smiles, chuckling a bit at the name. "But I’ve never been to Georgia before either. Just New York and Hawaii. That’s where I’m from. I grew up in Honolulu. But I’ve been here longer." Jason nods his head, but he realizes that his home state has probably changed drastically in the past twenty-six years. It does not upset him as much as it might.

[elenafontainex]

"Nothing wrong with that!" She insists with a casual bit of a smile, as she thinks about it. Drama queens are fun, she thinks. Much better than someone who goes around trying to take the fun and mystery out of everything that they can, simply because they can. Maybe it's better to be too much than to little. But she can't be sure. "How bad can they be? With all these new people, you'd think they would have made an appearance to put an end to it." Elena suggests, playing along with this theory. The idea of being a ghost sounds awfully lonely, so if this house is indeed haunted, maybe the spirits appreciate the new company. All she knows is that she hasn't been startled by any doors slamming shut or objects thrown across the room.

The werewolf isn't surprised when Jason says that he's never been to Rome, or to Georgia. It might be one of the bigger cities there, but it's not exactly a place that one goes rushing out to go visit. Not like the places he mentions, anyway. New York amazed her everyday, but Hawaii? She'd only seen pictures - and that place looked incredible. She'd go there if she could, but there isn't exactly a bridge she can drive on over. "Really? I'd love to visit a place like Honolulu. Where would you rather be? Here or there." She asks, not exactly making a smooth transition from where one thought ended and another one began.

[elijah-vestri]

The comment makes his lips quirk into a smile for a moment, his head still ducked and attention focused on his hands. Despite the guilt he felt, he couldn’t always be sure that would be enough to stop him from trying again. The hunger, after all, was constant, and while he’d lost his meal it didn’t alter that fact. So he watched his hands, chewing on his thumbnail in an idle motion that was reminiscent of his addict’s days, until he forced himself to stop. “Surprise,” he says, glancing up at her briefly when he says it, but he’s not completely surprised. He wouldn’t have guessed there were wolves out there, even knowing what he’d been turned into, and he wouldn’t have cared enough to put much thought into it.

"Depends on the movie. I don’t sparkle." The joke came surprisingly easy, but he bit his tongue on anything else, suddenly uneasy about saying too much. While she was acting surprisingly calm, the fact remained that he’d just tried to kill her not even five minutes ago. He wondered if they were just ignoring it now, in favor of things that were easier to process, and it was almost funny that the supernatural fell under that category. Still, it had him slipping back into previous habits, finding it easier to ask questions than answer them. "Is it like the movies for you?"

[elenafontainex]

It really is a surprise, too. But should it be? Probably not. Although the thought really doesn't want to enter her mind again, it's brought up as she delves further into her thoughts. On what had just happened. If he wasn't attacking her again, was his actions not out of malice? Just out of hunger that got a little out of hand? That's what Elena elected to believe - that he didn't attack her because he wanted to, but because he couldn't prevent himself from doing so. An accident, instead of cruel intentions. She didn't know the first thing about what it was like to have to survive off something like blood, so who was she to cast judgment on it? Hoping momentarily that it wouldn't happen again, she sent those thoughts away once more.

Her smile appeared at his own joke of the species, recalling those movies that had that aspect of vampires. She hadn't seen it, but was aware of the pop culture. "No? That's too bad..." Elena joked, getting that sort of image in her head. "It depends on the movie here, too." She explained, only recalling a few from when she was younger. Mostly cheesy horror films that displayed either very hairy men like creatures, or a strange combination of a wolf and nightmares. "We really don't look that cheap."

[jason-kealoha]

"You know, that seems to be the reoccurring theme around here, doesn’t it, sweetheart? I hope the place isn’t haunted. Certainly looks like it could be," Jason says with a knowing little smile, shaking the woman’s hand as firmly as he can. In any case, he’s not that scary of a ghost, but as long as he’d like this whole gig to last, he’s still wondering how he’s going to explain the lack of aging if he overstays his welcome. On this is Jason. He’s lived here fifty years, but he has a lot of wrinkle creams. Maybe he had to find a way to move on or something, but well, that hadn’t happened in twenty-six years. So maybe there was nowhere to move on to either.

"Are you from New York?" he asks just a bit too loudly. Because the woman was doing it too, and maybe she was deaf. Jason makes a bit of a face, but his lips fall into a small smile a moment later. In any case, his mood has mostly completely improved, but all the same, he takes the television remote into his hand and flicks to the next channel absentmindedly. He lets it rest on some reality show. But, in truth, he’s still not quite sure what those are supposed to be.

[elenafontainex]

The idea he brings up of the house being haunted, it wasn't one that had entered her mind before. She thinks that this home is beautiful, hands down something special. There is something so different about it, even if it's just all in her head. "You think so?" Elena asks, glancing around the living room they stood in. At least for the moment, she didn't personally think that it was haunted, but maybe that would be interesting. She certainly doesn't think that it's impossible for it to be, especially not after recent discoveries. "That could be fun." Depending on the ghosts that were haunting this place, that was. Although if worst came to worst, it wasn't as if the tenants living here couldn't just leave.

Her attention is caught again by his voice, and her eyes shoot back up to meet his. "No, no. Not from New York." Elena answers quickly, her head still consumed in the thoughts of spirits that may or may not exist. If werewolves and vampire did... why not them? It wasn't as if picking a random creature that someone had written about at one point of time was suddenly now crossing a line if she thought that just maybe, it was real. "I'm from Rome. The one in Georgia." She adds on, figuring that it might have been his next question - or the one he really wanted to know. "What about you?"

[elijah-vestri]

"Yes." It’s all he says about it, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t really see the need to describe the whole process to her, and it’s not like she’s asking, or has any real reason to care, considering he just tried to kill her. It leaves him sitting there staring at her and now there’s something like guilt settling into him, making his shoulders slump and his head duck so he can focus on the porch below him. The feeling is an odd one, because it’s not fully there, not real guilt, just the awareness that there should be. That it’s rude to attack housemates and try to kill them, and that she’s not yelling at him almost makes him feel worse. If she weren’t a dog then he probably would have, and then where would they be?

He waits for her to finish the thought, but it just trails off and just leaves him to guess at what she didn’t know. Probably the same things he didn’t know, that he was living in a house with one of her kind, not any place he expected to find himself. Lazlo had always talked about them with a vague sort of disgust, though he couldn’t tell if it was his idea of funny or if he really didn’t like them. Animals, packbeasts, but she didn’t really seem like either of those. He gave a shrug and did his best to fill in the blanks. “Yeah, well… I didn’t know you were a dog.” He gives a slight wince at his own phrasing. “Wolf. Sorry.”

[elenafontainex]

While there is still a chance that she is speaking with someone who is a little mentally deranged, that option feels less and less likely in her mind. She believes that it's more possible that he really is a vampire, no matter how much it's thrown her for a loop. Ever since she was twelve, she thought it was only werewolves. That somehow they were the only type of creature that slipped out of stories and into reality. But that thinking right there, wasn't that kind of naive? Who was to say what else was out there... vampires were just as likely to exist. What about goblins, or ghosts? Wizards? Were they real too? Her attention is caught by the sound of his voice, and her eyes rise up from the floorboards beneath them to look at his face. The face of a dead man, apparently. His words still have her crack a little bit of a smile, though. "Woof." She pokes fun at herself by pronouncing the word, but she absorbed back into her questions just a second later.

She needs to know more about this. "I didn't even know that vampires existed." Elena admits, wondering how that sounds. "Is it... are you like the ones in the movies? Do the same rules apply?" She shoots off question after question, and the altercation they just had almost vanishes from her memory because of this. She asks because some of the movies about werewolves are kind of accurate, and others couldn't be further from the truth. It's all just too interesting to ignore.

[jason-kealoha]

When the woman speaks, Jason does not immediately respond, having gotten used to the isolation of death too long ago. People talked around him, and he listened. But he hadn’t held a proper two-sided conversation in such a long time that his newer habits had already overpowered his naturally friendly demeanor. However, a few moments later, hearing no one respond to the stranger’s question, Jason looks up and flashes her an awkward smile, sitting upright in an effort to look polite. “What? Oh, me? Sorry, sweetheart. I thought you were talking to someone else,” he says quickly, adding in a small laugh. “But I guess there’s no one else here, now is there? But I’m just fine, thanks. Are you okay?”

He cocks his head to one side, and his tone is playful. Having been distracted from the television, he finds that his mood does considerably improve. He tries his best to keep on smiling. And standing up, the young man extends a hand to shake. “My name’s Jason. I just moved in.”

[elenafontainex]

She kept her eyes on the male during the silence, expecting him to speak up - but maybe he didn't hear her? If that was the case, she would leave him be. He was obviously deep in some sort of thought, or really distracted by what was on the television. She realizes that she wouldn't have wanted to interrupt that, but that's when he acknowledges her. At least he says he's doing fine, so she believes him at his word. And she's glad that he's not upset. "That's good." She repeats out loud, mostly for his sake - probably. Elena studies his face just a little bit more to try and place it... maybe she's walked past him before, she doesn't know. It doesn't ring any bells.

"I'm doing pretty good. Thank you." She replies a few beats late, but the smile shows up on her face immediately after. He has a friendly face, and a nice personality to go along with it, as far as she can tell. Elena had been hoping to meet more of her housemates before the end of the week, so this is a great start. Leaning forward to shake his hand as a part of the introduction, her smile hasn't faltered. "It's good to meet you, Jason! I'm Elena. I just moved in a couple of days ago myself."

[elijah-vestri]

He frowns at that, but it finally gets him to snap his mouth shut. There are a number of responses, but none of them are ones he wants to give. Not the how of it anyway, because it’s too much about his life that she doesn’t need to know. His death had been an accident, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen coming, and right now he didn’t want to think about it. “That’s personal.”

It counts for something when she confirms it, but it doesn’t necessarily clear anything up. “I guessed. I told you, I’m a dead guy.” He stalls briefly on the word because he doesn’t know that he’s ever said it out loud. He’s never really had to. There’s a sharp awareness of how ridiculous it sounds, which is the same reason he stuck with dog instead of werewolf, but he finally says it because it’s more descriptive than just telling her that another dead guy passed it on. “A vampire. We tend to be stronger than humans. And since you are too…” He shrugs, because it had made sense to him, and he’s almost relieved that he guessed right.

[elenafontainex]

She doesn't know what to think, but at least she is calming down as the confrontation does the same thing. The fact that he doesn't really answer her question, brushing it off with a phrase that she accepts, just has her wondering more. Convincing her more that this was just something he needed help with - because really, he couldn't be dead. He was right in front of her, talking, moving, looking healthy as can be. "Okay." Elena says, although it's more of a whisper as she tries to see if she can pick anything up from the look on his face. If she does, it would probably be her own opinion and nothing close to the truth.

There he went again, calling himself dead. Oh, how she wanted to know what exactly that meant. Did he consider himself a ghost? That didn't make sense. Her eyes bore into his as she waited him to continue, to say something that connected. To be honest, if he gave her a good reason as to why he grabbed her like he had, she'd forgive him. She'd do anything to sink back into her mind and forget that it looked like someone wanted to kill her. Then, he gave it a name. A vampire... but there was no way. Those didn't exist, right? But if werewolves did, how could she be so arrogant to just know that they didn't. It was a possibility, wasn't it? Everything was a possibility. "Vampire? You're a vampire?" There was a short pause as she tried to collect all her thoughts. She had met a fellow werewolf today, and now there was a man claiming to be something like Dracula. "I didn't know..." Elena trails off, not making it clear that she didn't know that they existed, or something entirely different.

[jason-kealoha]

Jason sits on the sofa in the living room. Bringing up the remote with a raised brow, he changes the channel once more and studies the clicker in his hand. In truth, he’s not entirely sure what most of the buttons do, but he figures that it’s about time he tried to catch up on the past twenty-six years. Allowing the channel to stop on something he recognizes, a movie about ghosts or something that he had seen the year he died, he cocks his head to one side and lets out a laugh. It didn’t work like this at all, and he thinks that being trapped in one place haunting a bunch of white people would be awful. So that’s probably for the best. 

All the same, as amusing as he finds the whole thing, the film manages to upset him as well. There he was, spending money he didn’t have on a movie ticket with a few close friends. But it had been a good night, entertaining enough considering everything that had been going on. Living for the day or whatever, shit you had to do when you got sick like he did. And then nine months later, there he was, emaciated and freezing to death on the concrete floor of some warehouse. He sinks further into the sofa. 

[elenafontainex]

She should probably start looking for a job. That's the thought that's on her mind, as this marks the fifth day that she's lived here without some sort of an income coming in. Her savings start to slip quickly when there is nothing being added to it, so Elena figures that today she may want to go out and look for something. She doesn't exactly care what, as long as it will provide her with the money that she needs to keep up her lifestyle. Whatever that was, anyway. Making bed-head curls look a little more presentable when she puts her hair up in a ponytail, Elena grabs the only two things she needs before heading downstairs. She's halfway down before she remembers the number is three, and she goes back up to her room to grab her keys before walking down the steps again. 

And on the couch, she notices someone she hasn't seen before. Is this another roommate? She's met a couple of them, but she's positive that she hasn't met them all. Walking around the sofa, she notices the look on his face, and before she can even think about the option that he may want to be left alone, she is speaking up. "Are you okay?" Elena doesn't mean to pry, and if he tells her to leave she'll do so... but why not ask, right?

[elijah-vestri]

He stays where he is, on his ass on the porch, and for the moment he’s in no real hurry to go anywhere. “Yeah. Dead. I died.” He doesn’t respond to the comment about him not looking that way, because if he looked the part he wouldn’t be very good at it. And he doesn’t explain the hunger either, because he’s starting to settle down enough that he has enough sense to bite his tongue on telling her head every intention of killing her. He could lie to himself, say he’d stop in time, but he knows better and at this point he never does. He’s tried, but not hard enough and never put in enough dedication, and if she hadn’t thrown him off she’d be a corpse right now.

"Are you a dog? A wolf?" He frowns, because the way she’s looking at him makes him wonder abruptly if he’s guessing wrong on this one. It wouldn’t surprise him, and the thought occurs to him that maybe she’s something entirely different. He doesn’t know of anything else, but that doesn’t mean nothing else exists. He didn’t know vampires existed for most of his life, and if he’d kept living any semblance of a normal one he probably never would. It has his head tipping to the side, eyes narrowing and feeling a little more cautious about this than he did a second ago. The only comfort he finds in this is that she seems equally, if not more confused. "What are you?"

[elenafontainex]

His explanation give her no answers, so she just keeps her line of sight on him, her mouth shut for once. There is no way he can actually be dead... so was he crazy? Maybe she could help him get into the right sort of treatment, because it seemed that if Elena didn't have the strength to knock his to the ground, it would be her that was dead. She'd play along for the hope of more answers though - what else could she do? "How'd you die?" There were other people in this house. If he had tried to kill her, maybe the feed whatever impulse he had to kill... was that what he meant by 'hungry'? Whatever, that didn't matter. If he had tried to kill her, what would stop him from trying to kill the other people around here?

The fact that he definitely knew about werewolves made her wonder how. Did he run into one before? Did someone tell him about them? If he knew.. there probably wasn't any harm in telling him the truth. It would just prove that she was too much of a match for someone human. It would prove her safety, right? Nothing else existed except werewolves - as far as Elena knew. She felt safe with those thoughts, no matter how wrong they were. His questioning her again only made it seem more urgent, so she finally responded. "Wolf. You're right. I am." She spoke with a disconnect, eying him further. "How did you know?"

[elijah-vestri]

"Well… I’m dead." He keeps staring at her even as the words leave his mouth, still startled enough that it doesn’t occur to him to be discreet about it. He knows his own strength, probably the only thing he’s aware of at this point. He’s not great with compulsion, but the strength he fully understands. And a little human girl shouldn’t have been able to throw him off like that. He sits up when she does, still staring back at her in no small amount of confusion. The hunger is still there, it’s still present, rushing in his ears as powerful as ever, but it’s easier to restrain when there’s this unknown staring back at him.

"I got hungry," he says. If that’s another one of those things he should keep to himself, he doesn’t. The shock of it’s made him bluntly honest, and maybe later he’ll feel guilty for it but right now he doesn’t feel anything except abruptly thrown outside the bounds of what’s familiar. She isn’t dead. There’s only one other option he knows about and he’s never come in contact with one. But it’s enough to make him frown, to blurt the words with the same kind of tact he’s had so far. "Are you a dog?" He wonders if he should feel some kind of disgust about that, because Lazlo did, but mostly there’s just that kind of curiosity when facing something that’s been little more to him than an urban legend.

[elenafontainex]

He thinks he's dead? Elena can't help but wonder if that's a feeling he's gotten from whatever is wrong inside his head, or if he truly thinks that. Maybe it's an expression for 'there's nothing left to lose'. She's heard that sort of thinking before. Or what if he thinks that he truly is dead? "You're dead." She repeats, not really a question, nor a statement, she is just trying to clear all of this up for herself. "You don't look dead." Elena murmurs, wondering if that will give her an answer from him. It could be as simple as a feeling... or maybe it's much worse. She doesn't know, but she wants to know. She wants to know why he went from civil to acting like some sort of a serial killer, and now... well now, she doesn't know what he's acting like. Like a dead man, maybe.

And his explanation was that he was hungry? Did he think he was a zombie, or what? "I don't even know what that means." She admits, hoping for something other than a vague riddle. It doesn't look like she will though, because he gives her a question like all of the ones she has been giving him. Was she a dog? How could he have even guessed slightly correct on that? Elena was aware that being called a dog, or a mutt, whatever, was supposed to be offensive. She didn't pay much attention to that, and so she didn't dwell on it from this man's lips either. How did he know? "Am I dead, am I a dog, what is this?"

[elijah-vestri]

Elijah’s not thinking about much at this point, just that he’s hungry as ever and there’s blood pumping away inches from his mouth. She’s still not struggling or fighting as much as the others have, at least the sober ones, but he’s past the point where he cares. His fingers are digging into her jaw with bruising strength, but he’s not worried about hurting her. If anything he hopes he does, and later maybe he’ll question that, question if this is really what he wants to let himself become, but right now the thoughts don’t register at all.

Not until her hand is around his throat, and suddenly his back is hitting the porch. Rough wooden floorboards dig into his back and if he had any breath it would be knocked out of him. It knocks his grip free, palms scraping the ground as he tries to catch himself, but she’s already leaning over him, the words repeated in a sharp demand. It doesn’t hurt him, but it stops him cold, staring up at her with confusion and surprise because he can still hear her heartbeat in his ears. She’s alive, she shouldn’t be able to do anything to him, let alone stop him when he’s caught in the bloodlust. “But… you’re not dead.”

[elenafontainex]

Mostly, she is just glad to be out of the previous situation. Elena wishes to slip back into her piece of mind, but she's unable to do that just yet. She wants answers first of all, like what his intentions were, and why. With that look on his face, she could only assume that he's done this before. Was he used to winning? The look on her face may have seemed far away as she kept her gaze on him, as if she was a million miles away while trying to deal with this situation. His words, though, they brought no clarity. It just had her eyebrows furrow as she straightened up her posture a bit, so she was no longer leaning over the top of him.

"Do I look dead? Of course I'm not dead." She said straight faced, rubbing her fingers over the spot on her jaw that he held onto so tightly. "What... what are you talking about?" Maybe that was just his intention - that she should be dead right now. Was that his surprise, since she wasn't? "What were you doing?" All of her questions just flowed freely, as her panicked thoughts went to try and sort out. Probably not very well. She was never very good at anything like this, using some sort of escapism to pretend like nothing that existed outside of her boundaries of 'acceptable' could even happen. Now that she was in the real world, at least for the time being, she was a little worried. Maybe he was just insane. Maybe he just needed some help.

[elijah-vestri]

There’s a flash of teeth that’s almost a smile, any and all pretense that he’s just this quiet, reserved man suddenly stripped away. The lie seems unnecessary when the truth is more fun, that he’s someone violent and brutal. Right now all he cares about is that there’s blood running through that vein in her neck, that maybe she’s not struggling as much as she should, but that’ll just make this easier. His hand leaves her forearm, grabbing her jaw instead so he can tilt her head to the side and get at her throat.

"Or you’ll what?" he asks. "Scream? Yell? Cry?" He’s smirking, face uncomfortably close to hers, but it doesn’t occur to him that there’s anything she can do to stop him. If he wants her dead, she’ll be dead, if she wants to beg, at this point he thinks he’ll probably just enjoy it more. "Knock yourself out."

[elenafontainex]

What is he planning to do right in front of the house that's filled with with others? If she does scream, like he taunts to her do, someone would hear. Then what? Perhaps he was strong enough to take on a human girl her size, but what if there were others who came. Would he be so powerful then? When he releases her arm to get a better view of her neck, something that confuses her, she is a little relieved that she doesn't have to break free of that. It will just be easier to escape his grip, something she is getting antsier to do. Her heart pounds quickly in her chest, but she isn't angry or upset enough to worry about shifting right here and now. She's uncomfortable, she's confused, she wants him to stop.

And she did give him a warning after all. Using her arm that is no longer being hindered, she grabs his throat and uses all of her strength to slam him to the ground beneath them. She does this as hard as she can, in the hope that it injures him enough from trying anything else. His grip in her hair did make it hurt herself slightly, but mostly she just comes with him. Leaning over his frame now - at least she has the upper hand. Or so she thinks. "I said let go."

[elijah-vestri]

Elijah thinks he has himself under control, thinks he’s doing alright with that. There’s a stub left in his fingers though, and he flicks it out into the snow, nodding his head at the girl’s name. Only then there’s a hand thrust into his line of vision, and his gaze is focusing on those blue lines just beneath her skin, the blood that’s right there for the taking. His perceptions shift, and if she was ever just a girl to him the illusion slips away with her offered hand, because at the end of the day she’s just prey to him. They all are, everyone living inside that house is just a meal waiting to happen and it doesn’t occur to him to even wonder why he’s trying.

There are acidic words dripping off of his tongue as his hand snaps out to grab her arm, faster than a human would be capable of. He curls his fingers around her forearm, on his feet in less than a breath, his other hand reaching out to grab a fistful of hair so he can yank her head back. “Why do people always say that? Just to be polite?” He snaps the words, sharp teeth slicing through air. “Maybe it’s not nice to meet me. Maybe it’s a big fucking mistake.”

[elenafontainex]

Her body immediately tenses up when he grips her arm, her eyes shooting up to meet his own. It wasn't as if he was familiar to her before, but any facial expression she had observed in him moments before had disappeared. His actions pull her immediately out from her little fantasy world that's stuck in her head, thrusting her right into a reality that she certainly doesn't want to be in right now. Giving a small yelp when he grabs her hair and pulls her head back, Elena doesn't react violently. Not yet. As far as she knows, this man is human. She could really hurt him if she wanted, but she didn't want to do that.

She'd give him a chance to back off. "Let go of me." Elena spoke, her voice lacking the bounce it had earlier. Whatever this man's problem was, she wanted nothing to do with it.

[elijah-vestri]

He almost asks her why, but it sounds too bitter even as he thinks it. Even that’s more habit than real emotion, and that’s what makes him hold his tongue. He used to be bitter about everything and now he doesn’t know that he cares. He’s dead, what’s left to be bitter about? Everything that used to make him that way didn’t matter half as much now that he was a corpse. He glances up when she starts to fidget, watching her hands move with an idle fixation. He wonders if he makes her nervous and he likes the thought more than he probably should. “Elijah. You?”

[elenafontainex]

Elijah, she repeats in her head. She likes that name. It's not one she hears very often, or remembers hearing very often. "I'm Elena." She introduces herself, bringing her line of sight back up to the taller brunet as she offers her hand for him to shake. Not as if she knows why, though, as she is hardly ever the one to initiate that sort of thing. He just doesn't talk too much, and maybe it's because he's not so good with people. Or maybe he doesn't want to be good with people - who knows, but maybe it will make him feel a little more comfortable. Or just make him more annoyed... but if he rejected it wouldn't hurt her feelings any. "Nice to meet you." She says just a moment later, hoping that she wasn't bothering him too much.

[robyn-atwood]

It doesn’t surprise her when people tell her she must really love this place. She does. She feels a soft spot in her heart for it, because two years after she left home, she found this place and it became her comfort. It became the thing that grounded her when she didn’t really have anything going for her. So yeah, she does love this place. But had it been the reason she’d stayed her for seven years? She’s not sure. A part of her thinks that’s the reason. Why move when she’s perfectly fine and loving life here? But part of her is aware that there’s loving a place and being comfortable with a place. This is the place she knows. This is the place where she’s comfortable and there’s a room upstairs that people don’t come into unless they’re invited. That’s a luxury she hadn’t had before this. And if it’s just something she’ll find in this house, then she doesn’t want to move on to the next. “It’s really nice here, but people move on eventually,” she says lightly. 

Seeing the woman actually wanting to go see her room, Robyn nods, turning and heading towards the stairs, but trying to keep facing Elena to make sure she meant right now. “I’m in room four? On the first floor? Which room are you in?” she asks, leading the way up the stairs to the first floor. She heads down the hall and towards the room at the end, near the bathroom. There’s a sweet smell in the hallway already and she wonders if that’s going to start to bother her housemates. But she likes to burn incense and keep air fresheners. She likes being comfortable and relaxed and it’s all part of it.

[elenafontainex]

When Robyn said that everyone moved on from this place, it had her wonder why the blonde hadn't. The answer could have been as easy as she just considered it home, or maybe it was a little more personal. Either way, it was stored within her little bank of questions to ask people whenever the talking dimmed down. She always had something on her mind, but at the same time she was always a little distant with it. In most cases she would just answer the question herself, within her own head. Probably a habit she would want to try to break, but most likely she'd forget to. "Do you wish they wouldn't?" Elena asked, another question that came to mind. One that wasn't so easy to answer herself. Robyn seemed a little shy... or maybe she was just soft spoken, the werewolf wasn't so sure. She would sure like to finish getting to know her though.

With her missing phone now completely slipping her mind as she now has a new objective, Elena went to immediately follow Robyn up to wherever her room was. "Room nine. Not so close." She grinned, now following the woman up the stairs. Elena really hadn't had much time to really take this place in, other than in just short glances. Not much of the first floor was explored, so this could be good. It sure smelled really nice on this floor. Sweet, and like it had been recently cleaned. She liked it.