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Welcome to Charming, the year is now 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.

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Queen Victoria was known for putting jackets and dresses on her pups, causing clothing for dogs to become so popular that fashion houses for just dog clothes started popping up all over Paris. — Fox
It would be easy to assume that Evangeline came to the Lady Morgana only to pick fights. That wasn't true at all. They also had very good biscuits.
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Call Me Ishmael
#1
March 10th, 1890 — The Vampire Caverns
Ishmael

It did the world no good to see a vampire with questionable morals and anger management issues go hungry. Yet this is where she found herself; stomping through the forest to go to Ishmael's cave and try and convince him to give her more of those damned blood popsicles. If she was going to try and stick to this stupid diet he had tried to convince her to stick to, he was going to be damned well aware of the toll it took on her person to stick to this New-Age hippie nonsense.

Ok she'd feasted on a freshly dead corpse once since and even that was a low point for her seeing as he'd expired in a ditch after falling into it drunk. That didn't count, right?

Not in her book at least.

As the vampire stamped through the woods, intent upon making her presence known, a list of things ran through her head at what she'd say to Ishmael; how dare he make her go on such a diet? She was tired of acting civil to people when she could just as easily knock their heads off and be done with her day. It was at the point where she could hear her teeth gnashing together that she neglected to realize the person she was looking for was headed for her as well, and she could only be made aware of it by crashing into him.

Azazel gave a shout of anguish as she was sent sprawling along the forest floor.

— For the March Writing Challenge! —



[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#2
Ishmael’s mind had been on other things. Azazel, see, while an ever-present problem, was old news. A wealth of extremely cursed, extremely powerful, extremely valuable old objects - new news. Galina finally being out of the Ministry? Good news.

The latter had been who he had been coming to see, for that matter, but he hadn’t made it all the way to the caverns when a collision threw him to the ground. Another vampire, of course. Humans were easy enough to avoid (they moved so slowly); vampires moved faster.

Ishmael had been knocked down into the earth too, and he was on the verge of snarling and springing back up when he realised that the other vampire now sprawled in the dust just a fraction away was Azazel. He sniffed, and changed tactic. Ow,” he drawled, with a petulant pout to match, making no move to get back up, and instead leaning back on his elbows and peering at her as if to say where are your manners. “That was rude.”



#3
From her position on the ground she heard his drawling response and sighed. On top of being hungry, the last thing she needed today was get another lecture from him about how she had to be more careful about how she presented herself in front of magical folk lest she stir up animosities between the Ministry of Magic and magical beings again.

The leaves crunched under her as she got up smoothly, brushing her person off as she went. "Pardon me if I didn't make myself immediately known in the Forbidden Forest," she replied, raising a quizzical brow down at Ishmael. "Or would you have preferred I go stomping around yelling out my name for people to know it's me coming?" She walked casually towards the other vampire, lacing her arms in front of her as she did so.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#4
If she was exasperated with him already, well he was exasperated with her. Already annoyed at him and he hadn’t done a single thing to deserve it!

He was sure they had used to have a lot more fun together. What had become of them?

“Maybe,” Ishmael answered with a derisive huff, not especially meaning it but keen to disagree with whatever she said. He stared at her from where she’d left him sprawled on the ground, pointedly. “And you’re not even going to help me up, darling?” She was standing almost close enough to. And, though he tried to make it sound perfectly casual, curiosity was getting the better of him. “Where were you going, anyway?” Perhaps he’d invite himself along. See how she liked that.



#5
Azazel furrowed her brow at the dark-haired vampire on the floor. A flicker of recognition passed through her as she regarded his expression. The way he was sprawled out on the ground staring up at her made her feel like she was being scrutinized, and it didn't sit well with her. To combat this feeling she wasn't used to, she scrunched her nose up in an impish grin. "Only if you say the magic word, my dear," she replied, taking her hand and leaving it outstretched. Aside from the returned grin, she kept her expression rather passive, taking the moment to observe him on the ground.

He seemed in good health, except for the twigs and leaves in his har leftover from their little bump in. It had been a while since their last chat, but Azazel found herself rather apprehensive to tell him what she'd been up to - after all, he was the one who had the connections that could end her. The thought of asking him what he'd been up to hung around in the back of her mind, but she thought to approach the conversation from his angle first. Besides, the answer she was going to provide didn't incriminate her in the slightest. "I was going to see you, actually," she said, answering his first question by simply holding out her hand.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#6
Ishmael pouted and didn’t say a word until she had extended her hand to him after all, after which he said a pretty please and sprang up to observe her better. She had been looking for him. Hmm. “After another blood bag?” He presumed: if she had been following his instructions, all she had been doing recently was consuming safe blood from his own stores and snacking where she could get it, well away from all humans. Which meant she was always hungry.

And although Ishmael might have been impressed with her for sticking to that, usually, today he was a little disgruntled with the whole idea - though it had been his! - for being obscenely boring.

His expression brightened, his eyes glinting suddenly. “Because if you’re hungry, we could always try something more fun.”



#7
Vampires were naturally quicker than non-magical beings, but the speed with which he got up rather startled her and she raised an eyebrow. A lazy grin slid onto her face and she shrugged. "Blood bag, blood popsicle, whatever substitute you use nowadays." Nevermind he forgot to say the magic word. Well, "forgot" didn't really apply to Ishmael when it all came down to it.

She gave a sigh, letting a tree take her weight as she leaned against it. "What I think is fun and what you think is fun are usually two very different things, don't you remember?" She replied, her throat going hoarse as the hunger clawed at her.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#8
Ishmael bounced on the balls of his feet as he regarded her, now standing. He had to agree with her words - they disagreed on plenty of things - but today, today, he felt free and he felt fun, the most fun in the world, and he was going to get his way whatever it took. He needn’t be the spoilsport.

“So you say. All those blood pops and you’ve probably forgotten how to catch a meal when you want one,” he said with a wicked grin, lingering on meal. “What say we head into Hogsmeade,” he offered - the slums were closer than London, and it was not as if he didn’t have a few convenient contacts there - “and have dinner together for once? We can’t have you wasting away, my darling.” And for some reason, it felt like just the night to throw caution to the wind.



#9
Azazel felt her eyes widen as she stared unblinkingly at the vampire in front of her. There was something off about him that she hardly recognized, but at the same time she knew that she'd craved this feeling of freedom just not two days ago. A prick of annoyance dug at her and she scowled at him. "Where were you two days ago when I had this urge, hmm?" She said, not bothering to mask her irritation at his poor timing.

"And besides," she said, shifting her weight and letting her head fall back against the tree trunk. "Arent you the one always preaching that there's another way?" Bloody hell what had gotten into him today? It was as if he was a completely different person. Azazel wanted him to loosen up a bit, but she wasn't entirely sure she enjoyed this part of Ishmael that much.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#10
“Miss me, hm?” he merely teased, at her disgruntlement. They were quite old enough not to live pinned to each other’s side, thank you very much. Was Azazel always this whiny?

“Oh, but I didn’t say we were going to do things your way,” Ishmael intoned, baring his teeth in a grin. “I’m too lazy to bury any bodies tonight,” he explained, as if he was ever inclined to kill for the sake of one meal; “but that doesn’t mean we can’t treat ourselves to a walking, talking snack.” There was some Ishmael in this; it was what he did all the time, take a little from a willing human. But he had never felt so willing to trust Azazel as tonight - never so willing to take a possibly disastrous risk - and that was very odd. He stretched out a hand to her, giving it the touch of a challenge. “Don’t you trust me?”

(But seriously, what? When had he ever thought it a good idea to trust her?)



#11
Her eyes narrowed and she remained stock still through Ishmael's pitch - what in the lord's name had gotten into him? Her lips pursed at the question, she gave in to the temptation to swat his hand away. Was this how he felt when she was around him most of the time? Her teeth were constantly grinding and she wanted to smush his face into the nearest obliging rock and waltz away. Quickly burying this temptation, Azazel sighed, rolling her eyes.

"You're talking in riddles again, Ishmael," She said, casting him a dark look. "Either we do it the way you told me to and get some blood elsewhere, or we bury a body, I don't see how there's any in-between!" Her eyes flashed, hoping he'd finally get to the damn point.



The following 1 user Likes Azazel's post:
   Ishmael

[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#12
The more annoyed she got, the more the self-satisfied feeling exacerbated. Oh, he liked this, liked having her hanging on by tenterhooks. “No in betweens for people scared to walk on the knife edge,” Ishmael said, beckoning her on as he began walking towards the darkened streets of the village. “No in betweens for suckers with no self control.”

(Azazel didn’t usually have self-control to spare, exactly. And Ishmael wasn’t sure where his had gone. But he’d find it somewhere. Probably.) “But tonight’s your lucky night, because you have me. And we’re going to do things my way.” He left that hanging for a moment more, just to irk her. “My way is where you get to take a little sip right from the donor’s neck.” Living donor, a living donor who got to keep living after the experience so that it could be repeated.

For some reason tonight that qualification didn’t seem particularly important.



#13
Her eyes flickered towards the line where the houses met the woods. The dryness — weakness that she felt was starting to sing over her rationale and she found herself gritting her teeth again. She raised her eyebrows. "Are you calling me a sucker, Ishmael?" she snapped, her resolve cracking with every word he uttered.

"From the donor's neck? And you don't kill them either?" How odious that sounded; though she supposed with someone as rigid and high-minded as Ishmael it was impossible not to sound as though one were sitting at the top of the world ona throne made of woven gold.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]
#14
“Never,” Ishmael replied, teasingly looping her arm with his - as if to encourage her to explore this new avenue, as if this were a perfectly legitimate outing and they had not both been the living dead for a hundred years.

“No, you don’t kill them,” he said long-sufferingly, rolling his eyes at her endless questions: she was not usually so hesitant to act. Azazel was often already on the rooftops as fast as anyone could blink. He grinned, as if to lure her to his mindset by making this a secret and a challenge, a privilege of the very best. “Not as long as you know when to stop.”

It could go badly wrong, he admitted, if she had no control. But tonight, Ishmael was curiously lacking his. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
wrap?

The following 1 user Likes Ishmael's post:
   Amelia Evans

#15
It was honestly so much less fun than killing people outright, Azazel thought, as she was swept along by Ishmael. But if this was his way of fun and he was usually the one to try and get her to cut back, then perhaps this wouldn't be so bad afterall. Perhaps this would be the outlet she needed.

"I hope you know I'll have to cancel my other plans for you." she drawled, sighing as she dragged her heels. At the very least she couldn't make this easy for him.




[Image: AzazelSig.png]

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