March 15, 1890 - Forbidden Forest, Vampire Caverns

Galina had known every step of the way that she shouldn’t have come back. That the second she had been released from the Ministry’s cells she should leave this place behind forever. But she had returned anyway. Traveling at night when she would revel in the cool brush of wind on her skin, a feeling barred from her for over a year. In jail she had tried to tell herself that nothing was left here, that she could walk away, but in the end she arrived at the mouth of the caverns where it had all happened.

The last time she had been in this clearing she had been arrested. Her search for Mari gone cold. The world they had been building seemed to have crumbled. Now she stood here again and promised herself it would be different this time. This time they’d find a way to create the haven she had hoped these caverns could be.

Galina entered the caverns allowing her slender fingers to trail gently across the damp stone wall. For the first time in almost a century she felt home.

Ishmael
Azazel

  

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Sometimes he wondered why he ever came back here. He was happy enough roaming about London with humans, after all, whatever he imagined about getting on fine with his own kind. The caverns were some sanctuary from wizarding society, but they were not free of its perils here. Galina had been arrested right from here all that time ago, after all. And without her here - well. Ishmael heaved a sigh. Every time he showed up in the forbidden forest, there seemed always to be a new problem.

“Piss off, Azazel,” he called over his shoulder without looking, just in case she decided to stalk after him. She was the bane of his bloody afterlife, honestly.

And occasionally he ran out of patience.

The night was dark and cool and the moment of solitude was certainly something that settled his mood, just a touch, but Ishmael hadn’t gotten as far as he liked when he heard the faintest sound of fingers scraping against stone. He stopped in his tracks. Only a vampire could hear something like that. Only a vampire’s touch could be that light.

“Who’s there?” He said now, narrowing his eyes through the gloom before he saw her. Not just Azazel, then.

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   Amelia Evans

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So. The old woman had been finally released. Well, Azazel knew she'd have been kidding herself if she thought the fun was going to last for long. Really, it lasted a ridiculously short amount of time, seeing as Ishmael had to go and ruin her goddamn fun halfway through her visit. It wasn't even half way! Ugh.

Either way she looked at it, ol' Galina was out from behind bars and Azazel knew she'd have to encounter her at some point. Best get it over with sooner rather than later. When she arrived at the caverns, Galina still hadn't arrived, so the vampire decided to lurk around in the trees while she waited. A rustling and light step told her Ishmael had arrived and she shifted her position looking at him curiously and debating if she wanted to make a grand entrance.

Clearly that had been spoiled for her and Azazel sighed from her position in the trees. "You know for once, I wasn't following you." She said flatly as she dropped from her branch to file in behind him. "Why must you think all my motives are nefarious, my darling?"

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Behind her Galina heard a voice. She paused, recognizing it in a heartbeat - Ishmael. Galina turned backward, feeling the pull she always did when she heard him or saw him. She moved forward until the shadows no longer obscured their faces. Before she could say anything she heard another's voice. A stab of annoyance brushed up. So she was still here too.

"Hello." Galina greeted them stepping forward so they could finally see her. "Have fun while I was gone?" She asked lightly her tone the quiet dance of courtier's life that she had been brought up in. Not acknowledging the darkness of her life, only the shallow amusement of one's circumstances.

  

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“Well, aren’t they?” Ishmael shot back at Azazel and her motives, rolling his eyes. Underneath that, he did not like the sound of ‘for once’. How often did she follow him? How often was she lurking somewhere like a cursed shadow?

“Galina!” He said, whirling about to focus on more thrilling things, like Galina finally coming back. “Endless fun,” Ishmael drawled in answer, half-exaggerated and half-sarcastic. He meandered up and slung an arm around her in easy greeting, half because he thought any show of affection would embarrass her; but, at the same time, even a year in a vampire’s time counted as something, Ishmael had not given up on every human gesture just because he’d not-died, and there had been a fair likelihood, if they looked at things honestly, that her arrest meant she might never have returned.

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Azazel's expression darkened, and she scowled as Ishmael went over to welcome the do-gooder back. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing if she succumbed they would probably be stuck there for a good while. the sight of the two so close set her teeth on edge. Azazel had the urge to punch something but unfortunately, there were two other vampires that prohibited her from doing exactly that, which only made the pit of her stomach twist even further.

"Why ever would the fun stop?" She said dryly, picking off a leaf from her shoulder and flicking it away with as much aggression as she could. It pinged off of the rocks and drifted unsatisfyingly to the forest floor.

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It had been so long since Galina had felt any sort of touch from other being, that she almost didn't stop herself from flinching as the weight of Ishmael's arm landed on her shoulder. It was not the only reason she felt uncomfortable around him. Lord knew there were a million reasons that had haunted her since the day she met him, but that marinated continuously in her solitary cell at the Ministry.

Azazel seemed much less enthusiastic at Galina's reappearance and she took in the floating leaf with careful eyes, her mind catching the layers to the statement. Galina was careful to keep any emotion from her face. "I suppose that would depend on the type of fun."

  

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Ishmael’s good mood at Galina’s return was being punctured by Azazel’s persistent pissiness. He wasn’t sure why he was letting it get to him so fiercely tonight; perhaps Galina’s absence had made things harder to stomach at the caverns.

“Oh, you know,” Ishmael said, tossing Azazel a dark look - a little more callous than he usually was when in her company alone - and he was only speaking for himself here when he explained, voice dripping with sarcasm, “holding the caverns together single-handedly. Stopping anyone else from getting arrested for murder. Keeping the wild ones on their leash.”

All wonderful fun, that had been. He felt bad, still, that he hadn’t been able to prevent Galina’s arrest. But he couldn’t say that, not with Azazel lurking at his shoulder in a mood like this. He oughtn’t be poking the bear in the first place, probably, but he could help the jibe and the jerk of a thumb to illustrate exactly who he meant as the troublemakers.

“They’ll be watching you, won’t they?” Ishmael demanded of Galina, solemnly. No doubt they would, even if they’d released her. Things would still be on a knife edge for them.

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Ishmael's scornful look in her direction only prompted Azazel to scowl even further before turning her attention to Galina. Her expression soured again as the fruits of her lazy goading fell upon deaf ears. She honestly might as well just leave for all the attention they were paying her! Idiots.

She let out a sigh, though her eyes miraculously stayed staring at the two in front of her as opposed to the backs of her head from rolling too far. She was the one he'd obviously been referring to as being on a leash. Her teeth gritted slightly together as she searched for a way into the conversation. "Of course they'll be watching her, darling," Azazel drawled, moving to lean against the cave. "After all," She said pointedly, her eyes now resting on Galina as her brows raised provocatively. "She was the one arrested for murder."

Azazel flexed her shoulders in a stretch that was purely for show. "Trust is broken already, that might be good for the law, however the human psyche –" She reached up to tap her temple. "– the damage is already done. No way to fix that except time." A small, toothy smile, then – "Or a hundred more years or so."

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Ishmael's words did not bode well, nor his tone. Galina found herself watching Azazel closer. She had long thought Mari had committed the murder that landed her in such a situation, but perhaps it had indeed been someone else. It wasn't too much of a stretch, but now was not the time to press the matter. She'd speak with Ishmael later - privately. Have him provide her with the latest happenings. If there was something be worried over he'd know.

Galina kept her face impassive, about to answer Ismael when Azazel beat her to it. Her jaw tightened as Azazel's words, the vampire seemed ready to shuck off the world of order in favor of something they could not return from. "It's a good thing then, that we have plenty of time." Her words while calm held a warning. She intended to make a haven for them to live. She would not see Azazel jeopardize that. Galina had less reason to trust wizards, she certainly didn't now, but she would not give up on a dream that had come so close to reality now.

  

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an amazing bee work of art

Azazel had a point there - Galina was now expected to be a transparent window to the caverns - but Ishmael would be lying if he liked the way she said it, as though she were pleased and preening about it.

Galina stayed calm, as she always did, as was her phlegmatic way; but Ishmael had always been more susceptible to Azazel pushing his buttons, because this was a problem he had brought unto himself when he’d brought her into this world.

“Shame the last hundred years haven’t done all that much for you,” Ishmael shot snarkily at Azazel. Maybe if he’d had more of a hand in teaching her the ropes... but then the vampire who’d bitten him had fucked off immediately and he’d figured things out well enough for himself, so maybe that was no excuse.

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Both of them were absolutely no fun, however that was hardly a surprise to Azazel as she stewed in the obvious preference that Ishmael had for Galina over herself.

She sneered at Ishmael, her teeth showing. "Oh, bite me, Ishmael — oh wait, too late." she said, the malice in her voice as clear as day. He was only testy with her because she'd spoiled his afternoon of reuniting with the old bag.

"Ive survived the last hundred years, I don't think the same could be said for other people who are already six feet in the ground."

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There were some things that hadn't changed, Galina noted dryly. Namely their ability to get a rise out of each other.

"People six feet in the ground aren't being hunted." Galina stated, keeping her thoughts to herself that perhaps those in the ground might have better lives. The last vestiges of the old religion she had been taught long ago rising their weary heads to wonder if perhaps they had indeed found Heaven instead of the internal hell of damnation that faced the three vampires in the cavern.

  

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On another day, he might have laughed at Azazel’s remark - he felt slightly guilty about turning her, but would usually drown that in humour well enough - except for moments like now, when everything she said or did was aggravating, and he wasn’t amused or sorry at all.

“I wish I were six feet in the ground right about now,” Ishmael bit out, waving a hand to say instead of having to deal with this. He had thought, in the past, about not having had the opportunity to thank his unknown creator for the opportunity, this strange second lease of life -

But when his life was this, making cutting remarks and throwing shade around the caverns, strung up in the middle of interactions like this one, Ishmael really wondered whether he wouldn’t have been better off just fucking dying when he had been supposed to.

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As if there were anything to examine under her nails, Azazel examined them carefully, wiggling them in front of her before raising her eyes lazily to the blonde vampire — the only sign that she'd even heard, much less registered what Galina had said about being six feet under.

It wasn't Ishmael's statement that made her hackles raise as much as it was his gesture. With a poignant flex of her raised hand, she curled her fingers inwards as if imagingin wrapping them in a vice around his neck. "That could be easily arranged, if you keep talking like that, you know." she bit back, as her body automatically shifted the slightest of millimeters — a sign she was already coiled to spring.

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Ishmael’s words twisted an old wound. She had done wrong by him all those years ago. How careless, how wreckless she had been. Not to mention foolish. Even her youth could not excuse the events of that night, the rashness and blindness of her decision. The decision should have been his, not taken from him in the dead of night by a creature he knew of only in stories. By all accounts he should have been dead and buried after a long successful life, not abandoned by his maker only moments after his creation, stuck in this eternal hell.

It was only a small move, a gesture of Azazel, but combined with Galina’s memories, her emotions of being home, and guilt at Ishmael’s words, Galina moved in response without thinking. With only half a thought of moving herself, Galina found herself in front of Ishmael, protecting him from a threat that, it occurred to her too late, likely was not actually there. But months of capture, of trying to outsmart the ministry had allowed Galina’s mental guard to slide down, to protect her own, to give a hint at the very secret she had hidden since she met the other vampires of the British Isles.

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   Elias Grimstone

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