I hope the roof flies off and I get blown out into space
I always make such expensive mistakes

17th June, 1888 — The Vampire Caverns

The fog was still heavy over Hogsmeade. This would not have been a problem, really. Ishmael liked the freedom it granted, might've hoped it would stay longer - but he had promised to head down to London sooner or later, and so he had not been planning on staying.

But.

He didn't trust the rest of them, and wasn't convinced the caverns would still be inhabited by the time he returned if he left now. On the one hand, there was Lyra Potter's little crusade: a cause Ishmael wouldn't have cared enough to object to, if she hadn't kept writing into the bloody papers about them. (As far as he was concerned, that was practically asking for them all to be scapegoated, whether or not she aspired to the opposite.)

On the other hand, there was February. With February, a little supervision never hurt.

He'd give it another day or two, make sure all his ducks were in line until the fog dispersed. Monty would be pissed, probably, but Ishmael had pissed him off before and lived. (In a manner of speaking, anyway.) If Monty took it personally, well - that was his problem.
 
Still, he was too irritated to want the company of his own kind tonight, and grumpily picked his way back to his own cavern to beg off from all the responsibilities that kept falling to him. (It was like he was the only person in the world with a bit of common sense -) Ishmael stopped short when he saw the fire outside his cavern spitting light, built up a great deal higher than when he'd left it. Must've caught some dry brush. He creased his brow but carried on striding nearer, until he suddenly caught sight of a figure there in the corner of his eye -

Ishmael started in shock, an action that felt foreign to him: startling people was his affair. The shock did not cease as he picked out the figure and the face as familiar to him. He hadn't seen her in a long, long time... but hers was not a face he could readily forget. (...Unfortunately.)

"Fucking hell," Ishmael swore, falling back a pace or two and staring at her in disbelief, wondering whether all that time wandering the Hogsmeade fog was now causing him hallucinations. "Azazel?"

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Azazel first, but open to other vampires at the caverns if they happen by~

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   Azazel, Cassius Lestrange

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Zel had hated the sight of the quaint little town from the get-go, but curiosity got the best of her as she entered the little hamlet and began exploring on her own. With a cloak donned, she didn’t look any different than any of the other vampires lurking around. She knew she wasn’t likely to find him here, so she took the liberty of pickpocketing a few people along the way to amuse herself. An expensive looking pocket watch, a pair of spectacles (what the bloody hell was she to do with those?), and an interesting silver fan were among the treasures of the day. She soon became bored with her own games and settled on finding the caverns that she’d caught wind of.

It had taken a few days lurking quietly to figure out which cave exactly was his - patience was one of the things she prided herself on, as she found it paid off more often than not. She’d planned on dropping in (quite literally, as she’d hoped to watch him enter the cave then drop down behind him to block the entrance), but her plan was foiled when she noticed he wasn’t at home. Seeing as she wasn’t invited in, she settled on slapping a fire together and waiting. Not that she needed the warmth, but it provided ways to pass the time.

She took her time wandering through the woods and finding ample firewood. A few bits of kindling, Old Man’s Beard, and a spark later - she had a full fire, crackling at the engulfing fog to sit in front of. Doffing her cloak, she sought to settle in, wearing her outfit of a stolen chemise and lace corset. Instead of sitting down in front of it, however, she turned her back to it and laid down, the tendrils of her hair precariously close to the stones lining the pit. Lying in this position, she thought to get more comfortable and she kicked her feet up onto an obliging log.

Would she had been able to drift off to sleep, she would have. Instead, she mulled over what it would be like to see Ishmael again. It had been a while since they last had an interaction. Zel wasn’t sure how he would react, but she was just itching to see the look on his face when he saw her lounging, bare legged by the fire.

Not long after she had sat down did she hear him coming. She didn't bother to turn her head. Only when the sweet, sweet sound of his curse filled the air did she turn her head to look at him, almost as if she was too lost in thought to pay attention.

Of course she was paying attention. She flexed her foot, arching it ever so slightly, as if she was getting ready to spring up. A smile twitched at her mouth; you could almost see the shine of her sharp canines glinting in the firelight.

"Hi."

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It was her. It absolutely was: the casual hi, the state of undress, the dramatic pose and devil-may-care attitude and devilish smile. All her.

"I'd say look at what the cat dragged in, but I don't have a cat," Ishmael intoned - nonchalantly enough - and extended a hand to pull her up from her horizontal position, as he once had pulled her up out of the inky waters of Portugal. (This time, it was a move less out of chivalry or any misconceived idea that she needed help, and more as a command for her to, you know, sit up and explain herself.) And until she did, he was anything but nonchalant inside - possibly even when she had, because Ishmael wasn't sure in what world her arrival spelled good news.

She had not been good news, even as a human, and he probably should have known that. But she had been all bare skin and overconfidence then and seemed the same now and there was still something illogically appealing about her, even though he knew full well she was more trouble than his time was worth. (More trouble than anyone's time was worth.)

He didn't, however, much think Hogsmeade would be able to be so easily rid of her as by him telling her to get gone. It'd have the opposite effect, probably. "Congratulations on causing me a heart attack," he joked knowingly - heart attacks did not stop either of them now - but he was sure she'd be pleased at surprising him. "I didn't expect to see you here." That was a mere precursor to what he was actually interested in, which was: "How the fuck are you here?" How had she managed to find her way to Hogsmeade - or to him? Was this just a delightful ("delightful") coincidence, or had she come for a reason? Ishmael had questions, many of them. Most pressing, perhaps: did he want to know?

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The red of Zel's lips parted as she threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, my love," she purred, eyeing his outstretched hand. "If you had a cat, I'm not entirely sure I'm the one who would be dragged in," she flashed her fangs at him again in a 'cat that ate the canary' smile as she accepted his hand. Bending down to get her cloak and luggage from the ground, she couldn't help but feel excited about finally finding him. It was no small feat, but she was pleased with herself at how quickly she'd found him (compared to what she actually thought the timeline would be).

Zel sighed. Yes she'd startled him but it wasn't nearly as satisfying as some of the other times she'd shocked him. Still, she'd accomplished what she wanted; it should be as simple as that, however with her it never was. His next words drew a shocked gasp from her. "Ishmael, your language!" she said, stepping backwards. "Is that any way to talk to a lady?"

Vampire clad in nothing but her combinations, the woman was anything but the picture of a lady. She knew this, which made her that much more gleeful when saying it. Jutting her lower lip out in a pout, she slinked towards Ishmael, draping her arms on his shoulders. "What, aren't you happy to see me?"

The woman wasn't stupid; it didn't take a village to know that whatever future Ishmael was looking forward to had been tainted by her apparition. Honestly to Azazel, that made it all the more fun.

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*just pretend she'd brought a luggage case with her too, I forgot that in the last post >.>

  

Been here all of two minutes and she was already laughing at him. Ishmael only rolled his eyes as he pulled her up. He noted her luggage, which was perhaps a clue that this was not entirely an incidental visit, but she had also summarily ignored his questions about how she had come to be here, so Ishmael supposed he would have to settle for patience - or, rather, teasing out the answers a different way.

It had been a long time. A very long time. Given he'd stolen away pretty swiftly after turning her (and after seeing what she had become in vampire form) and hadn't made any effort to keep in touch, perhaps he had been hoping to delay this little rendezvous even longer. Another hundred years or so, maybe. If - and it only just occurred to Ishmael that this might be part of the reason he'd stopped worrying about her, stopped thinking about her at all - he'd expected her to live that long without getting killed at all.

She was trouble, and she was terrible, but there was still the lingering knowledge that she had also been terribly fun. "Oh?" Ishmael said, smirking despite himself and his better judgement. "I wasn't aware you were ever a lady," he baited, as he recalled the long-past-days of moonlit trysts a pretty young human girl had offered herself up to without a care, and Azazel proved the same now by her dress and the way she already had him by the shoulders. Ishmael tried his best not to react.

"But where are my manners?" He feigned, affecting airs that had never truly been his own, however much practice he'd had at playacting over the years. He curled up a hand onto her own in a pat of greeting, and though he meant to prise her off, he didn't. "Of course. It's like my birthday's come early," he drawled, as though birthdays meant anything to people like them. "How have you been?" It was easier to tease than to pretend actual pleasure at her presence here (a collision that had come far too close to home) but Ishmael also wanted to make sure he didn't come across as visibly worried. Oh, he wasn't scared of her - he couldn't be, not with the history they had - but, in truth, he thought he liked her better when he'd had every assurance he was the dangerous one.

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She'd been goading him, she knew it. That still didn't stop the briefest flashes of annoyance from appearing on her face at his response. Her grip around him tightened for the merest of seconds before relaxing again, as did her expression and she smiled easily as if they were talking serenely about the weather.

Recalling the smile on her face had her remembering their nights together, brief but passionate moments whereupon night after night she could see a plan forming in her mind's eye. Her eyes raked Ishmael up and down, remembering the first night they met she wasn't wearing much less than she was currently. The thought made her insides squirm delightfully, and she gave a little hop as she moved to kiss his cheek.

"How thoughtful of you to ask!" she crooned, adopting the same affected tone as him; one that did not fit anyone remotely resembling Azazel right now. "Oh, you know silly ol' me," she continued, walking to the fire and reaching our her hands as if to warm herself up. Truth be told, she'd had her fill earlier in the day and was quite comfortable, thank you very much. Her tone changed from high and haughty to somewhere between syrupy and seductive. "Just been waiting for you to arrive. I've been lonely Ishmael, and I'm absolutely starved for some company, what took you so long?"

She raised her eyes from the fire back up to his, her eyebrows knitting together in an accusing expression of betrayal and hurt, as if he'd left her standing at the alter.

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How very her, dancing back and forth over the line between being gleeful and offended at him to an almost manic tempo. She seemed to be settling down, unfolding herself into a state of relaxation, but even that was sent skittering here and there by a skip and a hop, a kiss or a sting of sharpness. Silly ol' her, she said, like she couldn't be clever when she wanted - had clearly been clever enough to track him down, after all this time.

Presumably she wanted something from him. This felt like the only conceivable reason she might have put enough effort into coming here - the alternative: that she was only lonely, had actually missed him, sounded preposterous. And mildly frightening. He also didn't like the way she said starved. Only for company, maybe, but he knew what she was like. He wouldn't say he was better, exactly, on a moral level (and nor, indeed, did he care to be) - but on a practical one, his feeding style had always been at least more discreet.

"Well, how was I to know you were waiting for me," Ishmael chastised, stalking after her over to the fire, "and not off sunning yourself in Spain?" (Sunning, ha. He had no idea what had become of her in the years past, but if he was sure of one thing, it was that she'd seen no more sun than him.) Her skin lacked the warm Iberian shade it had once used to - and indeed the warmth of human skin, no matter how well she held herself at the fireside - but he eyed her in the flickering light of it, judging the colour she did have. If he had to make a wager, he could not be quite certain she was as starved (of blood, anyway) as she had suggested. Ishmael could have produced a snack for her, a bloodbag from his store here at the caverns, if she had been hungry enough... But hopefully she hadn't left a trail of bodies in her wake on her way here.

"I had some business down in town," Ishmael explained, with a brief quirk of his eyebrows and gesture of a thumb over his shoulder, back down towards Hogsmeade village. Business, he said: he liked the word. Liked having something to do with himself, something to boast about. He wasn't one of these creatures who moped about with their own kind, exiled and maligned, no; he went where he liked and did what he wanted, as long as it didn't draw undue attention.

Azazel had always liked attention. Even thrashing about in the water in the middle of the night, she had liked attention.

"You've come at an interesting time," he added, wondering if she had noticed just how far the fog was stretching, across the forest, from Irvingly to Hogsmeade, and how unnatural it was. (He'd only be half-surprised, really, if she had had something to do with it. Another horsewoman of the apocalypse come to wreak havoc.)

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The vampire eyed Ishmael for a second before giving a sharp jerk of her shoulders paired with a well aimed grimace; I don't know said the gesture. Of course it was utterly impossible for him to know that she had been waiting for him and not traipsing off in some foreign land. In fact, he didn't - no, wouldn't know exactly what had happened to her in Budapest unless she wanted him to. So instead of a real explanation, she settled for an airy, "I guess I just thought we had a better connection, my love."

Azazel's sharp eyes betrayed the tone of her voice as they followed his gesture over his shoulder and back into the town from whence she'd entered. So that was where he'd been attempting to....make a living......good to know.... the faintest hint of a smirk flashed across her face before she trailed her eyes back onto him (though not before stopping to look him slowly up and down as if she was seeing an entirely new person before her and it didn't please her one bit to realize it). How cute. He had business to attend to. A new life. Zel was a good actress when she wanted to be so the expression on her face remained placid from then on, as if him having business wasn't any different to her than him being a vampire.

A slight quirk of her eyebrow questioned exactly why she'd come at such an interesting time. Her answer came when she looked back over his shoulder and into the town. Apparently that town wasn't often plagued by such dense fog as she had suspected. "Interesting?" she echoed, her voice betraying her curiosity. "Why?"

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Wherever Azazel had been, she didn't seem to be tripping over herself to say. Ishmael might've pressed her, asked outright, if he had not been struck by a funny little shiver down his spine at the way she was still calling him my love, a pointed phrase in a honeyed tone, words that spun him back to years ago and worlds away without a moment's warning.

It was like no time had passed. Like they had never been apart. No: that was not true. Ishmael had scarcely thought of her - had never meant to, at any rate. He didn't feel the way he had, once, when he had been so young, still, and clinging to life  and passion and distraction ferociously, and she had been as much a lifeline as he had been hers, he had thought, from the midnight waters. But he had been the furthest thing from a lifeline for her, he knew that now, better than he ever had. The seed of guilt in him had been slow to grow, resigned to pushing through the idle cracks in his mind, his long-abandoned morals, but - apparently it had sprung up, somewhere in there. He had turned her, barely an instant after he had been turned himself.

He hadn't known what he was doing. She hadn't considered what might happen. He hadn't meant to do it - or maybe he had, Ishmael wondered with a start. Had he thought they'd had some connection? Had he really, quietly, unwittingly, only wanted to stave off his own loneliness, saved by a pretty face?

'Course, it didn't matter how it had happened now. He hadn't forced himself into taking responsibility for what he'd made of her before.

Now, however, was perhaps a different story. "It's not just any town, you see," he'd started off in explanation, always tempted towards trying to be impressive - and the place probably would be to her, once a muggle - "that down there is Hogsmeade. A village full of wizards. A village full of wizards, and that fog? Just taken away their magic." This truth was one Ishmael rather regretted sharing about as soon as he'd said it. (He had no business trying to impress her; he ought to be getting rid of her, sharpish.)  

He followed her gaze and then stepped better into it, closed in on her at the fire once more, slipped his fingers around her wrist to grasp her with some pretence of authority. He looked at squarely (at squarely as he could, given the fact she was slightly taller than him): "They're not to be killed, though. They all know what we are." They knew what vampires were and weren't capable of... and in all this fog, they didn't need more reasons to rally their pitchforks, or this could all get much, much messier.

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Wizards and witches? A faint scowl tugged at Azazel's lips. She didn't care much for wizards and witches. They didn't provide for much even playing ground, really. Their wand waving and silly incantations just made it unfair. Zel had hated them for a long time, envying their magic and even going as far as stealing a wand from a seemingly forgetful 11 year old. The most she could get the wand to do was make sparks. Well, sparks as it threw her across the room with the force of an explosion, though it'd take the force of 1,000 manticores to get her to spill that tid-bit. After that rejection, the vampire had focused on honing the skillset she did have, which gave her far much more glee than some strip of wood. She remembered realizing how much she enjoyed being a vampire that she told herself to thank Ishmael the next time she saw him. Well....if he behaved himself, she would.

He had given her an answer - no, a game to play - and he hadn't even realized it. He always did have the urge to be so ostentatious and impressive. Business in the village. Knowing more about this new place than she did. Tuh! Nevertheless, Zel stood her ground and listened. She gave a snort of laughter. "Hogsmeade?" she repeated, her eyes flashing back to the village. "What, is it filled with nothing but pigs?" She gave a trill of a laugh at her own pun. Despite her amusement, it didn't escape her notice that Ishmael had said they were without their own magic.

As soon as his hand made contact with her wrist, her laughter stopped - almost as if someone had shut off a light - and her eyes narrowed dangerously as they went from her wrist to the man holding her still. And still she was. Only for a fraction of a second (in which she contemplated flattening Ishmael on his ass). "Okay," Azazel said, widening her eyes at him in an expression so extravagant it was too much for it to be considered a serious acceptance of the order he'd just doled out to her. She closed the space between them with ease, relishing the feel of her body bumping into his as she stepped (perhaps a little too forcefully) into him. "I won't kill them." She said it as casually as if she had just decided to not have any tea, thank you very much.

cue the song... XD

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   Ishmael

Nothing but pigs, ha. Ishmael suppressed his snort, trying to stay serious about this, lest she think it was a game. She had never been a witch - much like he had never had the opportunity to be much of a wizard - but Ishmael was resoundingly certain that if she'd had the power, all the residents of that village might well find themselves waking up as pigs in the blink of an eye.

Better turned to pigs than dead, that said.

Her faux-innocence was far too discomforting, even without the way she moved in close; Ishmael loosened his fingers at her wrist reflexively, his hand accidentally brushing instead against the thin fabric of her chemise. (Of course that was all she had on. It would be too much to ask of her, to blend in.)

He raised his eyebrow at her slowly, a wordless response of why don't I believe you, darling? But best to stay cool, best not to nag - she would not take kindly, Ishmael figured, to her antics being too harshly policed. The freedom, the fun, all sucked out. And he had never liked to look worried.

"I'm just trying to keep you out of trouble," he said smoothly, not quite a lie, refusing to step back until his point sank in. At least a little. (Never mind the humans' outrage, if she did make a mess here. Some of the Hogsmeade vampires would no doubt have her head. And that would be a waste.)

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A scowl flitted across her face as she realized he didn't trust her. Keep her out of trouble? Rather like a parent not trusting their child in a candy store. The scowl led to a surge of irritation coursing through her. Who was he to tell her what to do? Of course, he was right to attempt to control her movements through this new town. The vampire herself could scarcely admit to herself that she was harmless. She just didn't fancy others knowing that. (It wasn't as if she tried to hide it.)

Zel pursed her lips, not wanting to fight with him so soon after arriving. She heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes, dancing away from him and moving to grab her things. "Fine, I'll pretend your concern for me staying out of trouble stems from an honest and...pure place in your heart," she said, picking up the luggage trunk with ease. "because I know you so well, dear friend."

She transitioned easily back into the sweet, syrupy tones she'd adopted earlier, and fluttered her lashes at him. "And because you care about me so, I'm sure you'd love to show me to your place where I can stay, yes?" It wasn't really a question.

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He couldn't tell her to leave, because she would be offended, and throw a tantrum, and he wouldn't be rid of her that way. And he couldn't let her run wild here, in the magical community, because he knew people here and this place was his and he knew she would wreak destruction in a heartbeat if she felt like it, even without meaning to.

Which meant he was going to have to cross his fingers and hope she'd leave, and else have to keep her in line until she did. And although they were something more than friends, as Azazel had just called him - had they ever been friends? - Ishmael did not like to remember that he had made her this way. (Well, he had made her this. No one had made her this way but herself.)

Nor did he like responsibility.  

Ishmael snorted loudly at her answer. She was right about how he felt about her arrival, but beneath that, somewhere deeper than he would even admit, there was a flash of relief amongst the reluctance - a little gladness. She was alive, then, had survived all this time apart from him. He had survived long enough to see her again, to see someone he knew. Most faces from the past, he would never see again.

He rolled his eyes at her, but nevertheless looped her arm into his. "Of course I would," Ishmael said, as if he had any choice in the matter. "Come on then, my angel. Right this way."

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