they all bleed red | Glowfic Constellation

"Surprise, killing people is not a way to get my coloration," grumps Leekath.

Maggie laughs.

Tessa Argyris

think-me-not-cruel

"I don't know, I've known a lot of people with your coloration who got it by killing people. It's certainly an option."

Leekath glares at her.

girls-just-wanna

"So, Maggie, you mentioned sparkling. And it being pretty. Would it be patronizing and weird to ask you to demonstrate?"

Leonardo Cristobal Sangre de Dios Rojas Moreno de la Corazón

"Aren't you lot allergic to sunshine?" asks Maggie. "How allergic? For that matter, where are we going to find sunshine?"

The backyard is currently experiencing its day cycle, says the bar. If that is deemed too risky I could provide a directional ultraviolet lamp for you to borrow.

"Huh," says Maggie. "Right, what do you all say to those options?"

needle-in-echo-groove

"Can't speak for the bumpy contingent, but for red and black court it's direct sunlight only, and the whites don't have any reaction at all because they're fakey fake vampires."

"Hey!"

(The bumpy contingent nods in agreement.)

"My spell is probably broken, but I can do this," says Leekath, and suddenly she's wearing a full-body hooded cloak with gloves and embroidery.

"Right, I'll go lean out the back door then," says Maggie, and she locates the back door, leans out of it, and sparkles.

girls-just-wanna

Suzanna stares at her, neglecting to breathe. "Pretty," she sighs.

Maggie twirls. "Aren't I just? Part of the upgrade - the sparkles and general cosmetic enhancements, that is. Nobody looked this good during the potato famine."

girls-just-wanna

"Were they gay in the potato famine? I ask purely out of intellectual curiosity.*"

*This is sarcasm. Intellectual curiosity is not involved in any part of this question.

"I was. Don't get your hopes up, ducky, my kind of vampire does love at first sight and is much less about casual hookups, and I don't love you."

girls-just-wanna

"Thank Someone for that. Love is disgusting. I'll pass, pretty as you are."

"There's nothing for you to pass on. If it were going to happen I'd have been gooey over you from the first moment," snorts Maggie. "I don't think it even does happen to people who think love's disgusting, same reason I can be sure if it happens to me it'll be a woman."

girls-just-wanna

"I think that the risk alone would bar me entirely from your world. That means I'm either sneaking into Lavinia's world when her door comes back, or I'm going with one or more of the weird triplicate vamps. Though there's no need to pack up just yet, I'm just looking at my options."

"Oh, I wouldn't bring you home, Siobhan's very strict about who she lets on her island and I don't know that you'd count as not a vampire to the point where she wouldn't kill you anyway."

girls-just-wanna

"Well, I don't know that that's fair! You could've told her you brought me in and I'd've fucked off to California and not bothered you again. Unless we became pen pals or something."

"Oi, I like my working relationship with my covenmates, why would I screw it up for you? She'd understand if it was a mate, those're different, but some presumptuous bint I met in a bar?"

girls-just-wanna

"I wasn't suggesting that you put me up for a week until I got my feet back! She wouldn't even accept me setting foot on her soil in order to immediately hop off it? It's not like I'd poach on her land, I happen to enjoy not being a pile of dust."

"She's very strict about it. There's one she can't catch, and it pisses her off, and that makes her so much the stricter." Maggie tires of leaning out the door. She shuts it and meanders back into the bar. "Barkeep, more of the same, or something else you'd recommend."

Just "Bar", please. €8.45 for my next suggestion.

Maggie produces euros and gets something fizzy and gold.

Meanwhile, Sky is looking at Leekath somewhat more anxiously than usual.

"S-so... what's your world like? The vampires don't kill people, so that's good. What else?"

"...We don't speak English. There's a vampire language, with regional dialects, and a bunch of other languages. The planet's a square, I think that's unusual. There's plenty of magic; I'm three kinds of magic and I was only born with one of those. One sun. Plants, animals, oceans, land, air, what do you want to know?"

"Oh, that sounds- lovely. I just meant... well, do you have, um, kingdoms? Or something? Or countries? What's- the one where you live? Like?"

"I live in a country with a appointment-based parliament that can be removed by popular referendum," says Leekath. "One of my dads is in Parliament and I work for him. There's a neighboring country that's a kingdom, and some others elsewhere, and theocracies and representative democracies and so on."

She chews on her lip.

"How's... how's the i-immigration? Policy?"