Eyes Never Lie - Elliot & Aliyah

[Pi dArtois]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
‹Aliyah› ”Aliyah, you will tell me where you are, or I swear I will find you myself!” The words ran through Aliyah’s head again for the hundredth time, bouncing around like a ball that never settled. Her mother’s shrill voice repeated over and over created the illusion of a broken record causing the blonde’s head to pound with a very real possibility of exploding. Her steps were frantic as she paced back and forth in her room, unaware of her flatmate…who could or could not have already left. The matter was of far too much importance to worry about Dhara, though, and a full on panic attack was in the making. It was probably for the best if she was gone.

Her gaze landed on the shattered pieces of her phone, a nervous twitch appearing in her hand as she longed to reach for it, somehow put it back together, and call her parents off. ”Harper Rock, you said? Your father and I will be there in two days’ time. We want to be sure you are alright. God Bless, my darling.” Her mother hadn’t even given her a chance. There was no fighting it, now. They were on their way. And their daughter was a vampire…a new vampire, one that could hurt them without even realizing it.

”Oh, what am I going to do?” Ali whispered, hands tangling in her hair as she tried to think of something, anything to get her out of the hole she had dug for herself. It was what she got, really, for not calling them enough. Now, they were worried, and demanding answers that Ali couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer. With no one else to turn to, Ali raced to her computer, loading it up with an email. At first, she typed in Elliot’s, but recalling his dislike of technology, she quickly added Pi’s. Hopefully she was much more inclined to check her email.

||Pi? It’s Aliyah. Could you come to the flat in Covidae, right away? It’s urgent!|| With it sent, she pushed away from her desk and began her pacing once more.

‹Pi dArtois› Pi has received the key from Elliot for the apartment in Corvidae, instant access into the place she had never known about until the night she’d met Aliyah. When she received the text from Aliyah she pulled it out of her pocket, rolled it around in her hand. There was nothing special about the key. It was small and sliver, with the jagged teeth you’d expect, and the small hole at the top for a person to attach to a key ring. Pi hadn’t done that yet, instead she carried it on its own, wondering about it, worrying it with her hand when she felt it in her pocket. It was a reminder really, a curiosity and a seductive thing. A place Elliot hadn’t told her about, and one he’d been using as a safe house for women.

Curious. More and more curious. Pi was well acquainted with her nature, was learning to accept it, even as the very volatile nature of her feelings continued to surprise her. Where Elliot was concerned her sense of reason fled the building. What remained was a small thing, jealous, suspicious and envious, a craven emotion that ate at her sometimes, pulling at her good intentions and ripping them out of her stomach, like offal meet, white and grotesque. They weren’t the best of her, she knew that. And because she knew it, she tried to contain the emotions, lock then up and pretend they weren’t there.

Until something like this happened. This key, for this apartment that houses, three… three women. One she’d never met, a human. Skylar and now Aliyah and for the last two Pi had found a reconciliation, a rationale that served to quiet the sharp beast in her breast but for the woman Pi had not me, that human faceless female who clutched the edges of Pi’s imagination, for her there stood a sense of quickening, curiosity yes, but also… something vicious and cruel.

The message from Aliyah served as a reminder about a vampire Pi was determined to help. As she was determined to help all in their lineage. She’d proved herself resilient and outgoing, willing to be shown what it meant to be vampire and willing to learn and to be a part. There was a certain pride in seeing someone so willing to become what they were. It was a struggle, a constant one and the message showed exactly why that was so. So many things could be deemed urgent. Forgetting you were vampire and staying outside in the sun only to be fried like an egg on the pavement as the suns rays burned through skin and clothing to reach the bones of a person and attempt to eat that too. Or any other host of things. And this too was important for her and Elliot.

Closing her eyes Pi responded telepathically. I’ll be right there..

Clenching the key in her fist Pi slid it back into her pocket. Yes, she wanted to help Aliyah, and Pi was going because it really was important. But she couldn’t deny she hoped she met the human there too. Or if all that fails, find a photo of her, or something that Pi could.. see and connect with. Because Pi needed a good reason not to come back… or a good reason to come back and do something… she know she’d later regret. But anything, anything was better than knowing nothing at all. And with this message, Pi could do both. How convenient.

Putting the key into the lock, Pi pushed her way through the apartment. Her steps soft, her voice softer. "Aliyah?"

‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot was slowly getting better at checking his technological gadgets. Slowly. Though it was probably just a phase – a thing that he would vow to do for a while, and then the habit would fall by the wayside as he got distracted by something else. There were a lot of things that Elliot had to deal with on a nightly basis. At least, most of the time, he could start the night beside Pi – could get what he needed from her, that which would keep him sustained for the rest of the night. After that? He had to visit his businesses. All four of them. He had to check in, and he had to do paperwork. He had to organise meetings, attend meetings, pay bills, do rosters, organise pays – sick leave, holiday pay, lieu days. And that wasn’t to mention things that went wrong with buildings, complaints from customers. It was a **** storm.

[Lancaster]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
‹Elliot d’Artois› But it was something that he enjoyed, nonetheless. It kept him on his toes. It threw random things his way and he was able to catch them and roll with them, slowly getting better at rolling with the punches and getting up on his own two feet again, strong and unphased. Though – he and Pi had not yet talked to Mkvenner, and Elliot had not yet had his second meeting with Skylar. He was anxious, that she had made her bed with a member of Tytonidae.

So when he checked his phone to see an urgent email from Aliyah, he could only groan and wonder what the hell had gone wrong now. They said bad things came in threes. This had to be it. The third thing. But, Elliot being Elliot, he would race head first into this, too. Someone had asked for help, and there was no question that he would give it. He didn’t answer Aliyah. He simply tomed, and portalled. He arrived just as Pi was stepping through the door. Elliot sauntered up behind her, pretending that the two were together, peering inside as Pi called out for Aliyah.

[ Wearing: http://i.imgur.com/pcBoJoZ.png ]

‹Pi dArtois› [Wearing: http://i1124.photobucket.com/a...5ec.jpg]

‹Aliyah›If her mind didn’t shut down in the next few minutes, there was real potential for something to go terribly wrong. The frayed ends of her nerves were slowly being lit on fire, and with each one, she grew more restless and agitated. Her only hope was that Pi or Elliot would arrive and somehow calm her down with their infinite words of wisdom in the ways of vampirism. In truth, she had no idea that they would have the slightest clue how to help her, but there were the best shot she had at making it out of this situation with everyone alive, and the Masquerade intact.

With a groan, Ali found herself in front of her mirror, looking to see the disaster of a girl that stood there. Except, she saw nothing. The mirror showed no signs of a figure standing before it, instead reflecting the dark bedroom it inhabited. And that infuriated her. With a snarl, she smashed her fist into the object, the glass splintering and shattering to pieces on the floor. The frame stood fast against the wall, and Aliyah glared at it with utter disdain. It obviously wasn’t the mirror’s fault that what she was prevented a reflection, or that her parents were coming…but she needed to let out her anxiety somehow. It just happened to be in the way.

When Pi’s voice rang out, it was as if the woman had screamed as loud as she could, and Ali whimpered as she covered her ears. Her emotions were on high alert, and it was as if the scurrying of mice feet was loud enough to serve as an alarm. But, as horrible as it was, Aliyah rushed her bedroom, nearly colliding with Pi and Elliot as they entered. She stared at them, blankly, suddenly lost as how to best explain what was happening to her. She blinked, multiple times, unaware of the distinctly slit pupils of a cat as she gazed at them with.

Then, it all came out in a rush. “My parents are coming. Here. To Harper Rock. I don’t know what to do. They can’t see me. I can’t see them! What if I hurt them? What if they find out about vampires? Oh my G--..” she suddenly choked and stepped back from the pair, taking that as her cue to shut the hell up.

[Wearing: http://i62.tinypic.com/wi65qr.jpg]

‹Pi dArtois› Pi felt Elliot come in behind her and smiled, she didn’t turn to him, but unconsciously made room for him to move into the apartment with her, swinging the door closed behind them and stopped just on the threshold, standing together, shoulder to shoulder (or mostly, since her shoulder really only reached his chest). But she was glad he was there, had come to help Aliyah as well. She felt a bit guilty about her wayward thoughts, and the symbolism she’d imbued in the key he’d given her. Their presence came at the sound of breaking glass, the unmistakable crash and shattering heralding their entrance. This couldn’t be good. Not at all.

When Aliyah appeared her hair was a mess, her expression panicked, stricken. Pi didn’t have any parents, couldn’t imagine what the woman was going through. But they’d just had this very same conversation, her and Elliot, not that long ago. About his own parents, and how much he’d missed with them, and she had weathered his own reaction to her suggestion that he offer they come here, to visit him, to fill the gap that being a vampire in another country had created. There was nothing they could do, no good way to manage how to BE a vampire when human parents came to call. And Aliyah was right to be concerned, was right to look as if there was a rolling ball of **** bouncing its way down the steep hill threatening to flatten her with its ponderous descent. Parents, human ones who didn’t know what their child had become were not something easily fixed.

Her eyes widened at the statement, turning immediately to Elliot as if he held the answer to this dilemma in a way Pi didn’t. “Oh ****.” She said, rather unhelpfully. “Well,.. that could be complicated.” The words were softly said, and they weren’t in any way helpful, nor did she think they would work to calm the woman, but really, Aliyah had every right to her panic. Even Elliot who had been a vampire for years, couldn’t fathom how to deal with this situation, for a vampire as new as Aliyah.. the resulting fall out could be… catastrophic.

‹Elliot d’Artois› The key Elliot had given to Pi was done easily. There’d been no hesitation when handing it over, because he trusted her. There was no reason why she didn’t have it already, beyond it slipping Elliot’s mind. It had been an act of spontaneity and a property that he had visited only once very briefly before Dhara had moved in. There was nothing attached to that key. No sordid love nest. No hidden secrets. There was nothing in Elliot’s mind that could possibly fathom how Pi would not believe him. So he never questioned it, and never explained himself. Surely, she understood his tendency to take strays under his wing. It was his natural state of being.

[Aliyah]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
‹Elliot d’Artois› As soon as Ali revealed exactly why she was panicked, however, Elliot seemed to deflate. It wasn’t something that would cause his anger to unfurl, like it had in the office with Skylar and Roderic. He had a feeling that he’d legitimately scared Skylar, for which he was sorry. But it was cause for worry, and distress. Yes, when Pi had suggested that he bring his mother over to Harper Rock, he may have reacted the same way. Angry. Anger was an easy fallback. His face twisted, that hair in his eyes. He cleared his throat as he peeled away his jacket, buying time.

“It’s really not a good idea,” he said. “They… they don’t have your address, do they? Are they going to try to come here?” he asked, slowly, voice a low, calming rumble. This was a delicate matter. He draped his jacket over his arm, and narrowed his eyes at Aliyah. There was something different, there…

‹Aliyah›The lack of response Pi offered in terms of advice and help left a sudden hole in Ali’s chest, and she stared at the woman as if she had just crushed every dream she had ever had. They were her lifeboat, and now it was sinking. Her anxiety kicked up another notch as she fell back against the wall, her mouth open. What was she going to do now, when the people that she had gone to help, were just as lost on what to do in the situation? Still, she clung to the hope that somehow, some way, they would find a way out of this. A way to handle the situation with so much delicacy, it was almost fool-proof. Assuming, of course, she managed not to ruin the whole thing as she usually did.

Elliot’s words were even less soothing, and she threw her head back against the wall with another whimper. “They do know…they know I live here…I…she forced it out of me!” she rambled, looking between the two in complete desperation. “She threatened to find out where I was on her own if I didn’t tell her...I couldn’t risk that! What if they dug into Harper Rock? Exposed us?” Just the thought of it had her on the verge of hyperventilating, the newfound stress suddenly enough reason for her lungs to decide it was time to work…and do terribly at it.

Pushing herself from the wall, she stumbled around the living room. “If I try to call them off now, they will know something isn’t right. They will just…know.” She didn’t know why, but she needed Pi and Elliot to understand. Needed them to get why the situation was going to happen whether they liked it or not. Her parents were coming, and they needed a plan to get through it.

‹Pi dArtois› “You have to calm the hell down or something!” Pi said, trying to use enough force to get through to the hysterical woman, her gaze narrowing on the other woman’s expression. It probably wasn’t the most helpful way to try and calm the woman, by demanding it, as if emotions like these could be turned off like a tap, twist one way and the anger and frustration flowed in a sluice of cold water and the other way when you were done with it, shutting it down as easily as a twist of ones wrist. Pi knew that, and inwardly cringed at what she expected was the wrong tack. Yeah, there was a reason she leaned on Elliot for these types of things. She was so bloody bad at it. She supposed being calm yourself was the best way to help a person be calm but Aliyah should know, just how bad an idea her parents coming here was.

“They can’t come here, not to Harper Rock and certainly not to THIS place.” Pi exclaimed, her expression now bordering on her own level of shock. Aliyah’s parents, walking through the Quarantine Zone… where the zombies were. There were no words, Pi had no words. “You have to find a way to stop them Aliyah. It’s not just about you… but about other things as well. Their lives, your life is in danger if they come. For hells sake we have vampires and zombies here and you can’t walk in the sun? What are you going to do if they ask you to meet them for breakfast. Even in winter you can’t head out because you’ll flame like an Independence Day rocket and that… can not happen.”

There were more than one way to find yourself in the **** in this city and between them, Elliot and Pi had managed to walk the tightrope on all of them. Elliot, to his credit, had managed not to get killed for it, but she had. She’d been killed, for her blood thief child who had thought he was immune to the rules of the city and who had paid the ultimate price for it.. and so had she, when she’d been a younger new vampire and had believed fighting for the one childe would somehow be enough. It hadn’t been. And Tytonidae had killed him… and killed her. Collateral damage she’d been. And so would Aliyah’s parents. “If they come… we can’t keep them safe. And you won’t be able to either.”

‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot should have clamped his hand down over Pi’s mouth. Should have stopped the rage of words that came spilling from her. Now he didn’t seem to have one hysterical woman, but two. No, Elliot didn’t think it was a very smart idea to give them this address – the Quarantine Zone. They couldn’t even get in, unless they went through the sewers. Elliot doubted it was even a listed address. Couldn’t be, because that would just be stupid. He strode forward and placed a heavy hand on Pi’s shoulder – a silent way of saying down, girl because her reaction didn’t help things one single but. Her reaction frustrated Elliot, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

“You need to calm down too, Pi. You can’t blame Aliyah,” he said softly. He then turned to the fledgling, to the woman who was slowly losing her grip on everything. “We can fix it,” he said with certainty. “You’re new to this city, and it’ll be easy enough to intercept your parents before they get here. Give them a different address. Say you got it wrong,” he said. What he couldn’t quite believe was how angry Pi got. After she had suggested that Elliot invite his mother, and she gave Aliyah this? He shook his head.

“Sit down, Aliyah. Please? Pi – you can’t just assume everything doom and gloom. It’s really not. I get away with being human every night. Just a few well-placed lies and some support for Aliyah,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Pi as if in threat. He’ll tell her to get the **** out if she keeps acting the way she is.

[Aliyah]

Feline eyes flashed back and forth from Pi to Elliot as they seemed to have a war of words, each of them using different tactics to deal with the situation. It was clear that Pi was in no shape to offer any advice, and the words that spewed from her mouth only increased the anxiety coursing through the blonde's veins like liquid heroine. If it wasn't from the perpetual downfall of vampire kind due to her own parents, it might have actually felt like it, too.

"Ohhh...what are we gonna do?" she muttered, turning away from Elliot as he went off on Pi for her doom speech, clearly being the only one capable of taking charge of the situation. Though she knew better than to do so, her mind began creating vivid "what if" scenarios that ended with the deaths of her parents, or herself. Each was as gruesome as the last, some even involving severed heads. The images collided against her skull, creating a throbbing headache, and suddenly Elliot and Pi's voices sounded like ear piercing screams, much as they had when they first entered.

Aliyah whipped around to face them, her expression a mask of panic. As instructed, she lowered herself into the chair she had since claimed for herself in the apartment, though her legs bounced around against the floor. It was usually a habit that triggered even her nerves, but there was too much pent up energy to withhold.

Minutes after Elliot made the suggestion, his words finally sank in and she looked up at the pair. "I never gave them an exact address...I just told them I was living in Harper Rock..." she whispered, vaguely aware of the fact they may not hear her over their own arguing. "I'm not totally stupid... The last part was muttered in annoyance, but she could understand their panic...after all, she was the worst of all three.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi could feel her gaze flickering, colour to grey to colour and back to grey again. The colour and shape of her iris’s changing with it. Her human blue giving way to the wolf’s brown and back again, a roulette wheel of churning emotion reflected in her gaze. She knew what the cause was, had understood quite early what it signified and could no more stop the wolf from showing in her eyes than she could stop the sun from rising in the East and toasting Aliyah like a roman candle in from of her parents who were apparently going to come visit. She was scared and angry. She wanted to keep Aliyah safe but understood how this city made it so hard to do something that should have been so simple.

Parents, human ones, were not an easy thing to bring into this world. Her and Elliot understood that, intimately.

She flung herself (gracefully, not petulantly) into a seat next to Aliyah, glaring steadily at Elliot her eyes fully gone the grey, the wolf’s brown taking over, no longer being pushed out by colour but fully present and fully engaged. She might have even snarled, the wolf was so close to her skin. She did raise her nose, sniffed, a purely canine gesture she wasn’t aware she made. If she had wolf ears they’d be up and tilted forward and her fur would be ruffled across her shoulders.

The phantom feeling was so real she rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension that sat there, her gaze, deeply brown, a russet reflection of fallen leaves ringed by dark lashes. Such an alien look, fully animal, hardly human and directed with intensity on the man who moved in front of her.

The wolf recognised Elliot. She recognised him on a level that went beyond Pi’s own feelings. The wolf recognised the man and the canine, their natures the same in the way Pi and Elliot were the same as well. The wolf remembered nights in the forest, running through the bracken and branches, cold leaves, soft loam and the smell of small animals fleeing before their pounding paws. She remembered nipping at his flank, butting her muzzle against him and tilting him off his pace, only to scramble past him in their mad race.

“You are not stupid Aliyah.” Pi said finally, her voice lower, a growl she couldn’t soften with the wolf so close to her skin. “It just.. complicates things. You were right to call us.”

“What Elliot said will help. We have other places we own… better locations than this. We can use those. I have… the cabin?” she suggested, a question more than a statement, her gaze still arrowed intently on Elliot, before slowly to Aliyah.

[Lancaster]

And here, Elliot thought that he was prone to overreacting to things.

Now, he had two women. One who was getting huffy at one simple remark, and the other who looked like she was going to become a furry hulk if someone didn’t calm her down soon. And there was Elliot, in the middle – Elliot, who could feel the emotions swirling around the room like a veritable firestorm, and he was the one staying calm.

He had asked whether Aliyah’s parents had her address and she had answered in the affirmative. Of course Elliot’s only conclusion could be that they were going to try to come into the Quarantine Zone – though, most reasonable people wouldn’t even try. Most reasonable people would see that big wall and would assume they’d been given the wrong number. The wrong street name. Either that, or they’d decry technology, and stupid GPS systems. If they were reasonable people, they’d have contacted Aliyah as soon as they realised they couldn’t get through, and would have asked where she really lived.

But now Elliot knew that they didn’t have an actual solid address, it just made things a hell of a lot easier. Elliot stood still with his arms crossed over his chest.

”The cabin will work,” Elliot said. It was nice, out in the wilderness. It was atmospheric. ”We’ve got the plants in there,” he said calmly to Pi. ”But we can move them out. It shouldn’t take too long with the right help. We can make the place look nice,” he said. He then turned to Aliyah.

”When did you talk to them, and where are they coming from? How much time do we have?” he asked. These are the basics. These were the things that they had to know. It wouldn’t do any good to panic. They had to get their ducks in a row. The cocktail of emotion swimming in the atmosphere due to the two women was slightly disconcerting, but Elliot did his best to block it out. He tried not to focus on his own, either. Everything was going to be fine. He continued to tell himself, a mantra in his head.

[Aliyah]

Her gaze switched between the two of them as they both seemed to battle their own inner demons. The talk of human parents was apparently a topic that no vampire was ready to take on, too full of danger to even be considered with an open mind. Not that Aliyah had a clear mind on the situation, herself. If anything, she was possibly the most irrational being in the room. And despite knowing she was being irrational, there was no way of calming down, now.

As Pi dropped down beside her, Ali picked up on the change in tone. Her feline irises moved to zero in on the other woman. The differences in both expression and demeanor were quickly obvious, but it was the woman's eyes that were most noticeable. The blonde leaned forward, staring into Pi's eyes with a sense of awe. "Your...your eyes..." she gasped, raising her hands as if to cradle the woman's face so that she might get a better look. They never made contact with flesh, the woman's expression providing an intimidation factor that had never before really bothered Ali. "What...what is wrong with them..?"

She didn't wait for a reply from Pi, instead choosing to sit back before she ended up hurt for getting so close. It was obvious that there was something fundamentally different about Pi, and that different could end with problems. So, she allowed herself a minute to recall just what it was the two were offering up as alternatives to her parents marching into the QZ...not that they could, as the area was watched like a hawk. Usually, humans inside were seen as suspicious, and how Dhara managed her way in and out without notice was a miracle, truly.

"The cabin? Do you think they would accept I lived there? I never was much of... camping...sort of girl," she asserted, shrugging up her shoulders. Every muscle in her body was still tense and shaking, but at least she had managed to bring her voice down to acceptable indoor means. It was a little better than where she had been, and maybe that could help Elliot control the situation.

However, the more time that went on in their discussion, the greater the pounding became in her skull. If she were human, the blonde was quite sure she would be in absolute hysterics from the pain. It was like the equivalent of a migraine, except ten times worse. It was a numbing process, creating a black hole of pain where any rational thought could have been formed. So, Ali sat there, staring vacantly at her two mentors.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi’s head tilted to the side. It felt like the most natural movement in the world, borne of curiosity at the woman’s statement and questioning curiosity at the cat the wolf saw in the gaze directed at her. But it wasn’t natural, that tilting of the head nor the angle it remained. It was very canine, an innate gesture of an animal that vibrated under her skin and she retained the position, in fact she might have been close to baring her teeth or lolling out her tongue so close did the wolf want out of her skin.

Instead Pi straightened, slowly, deliberately, knowing as she did that she needed to take control of the wolf, reasserting power over the animal in order to better investigate what exactly what was going on. It wasn’t easy. It had been a while since she had let the wolf run, since she had let go of her human side and let the animal take the lead. Soon though, she promised the other half of her soul, soon they would run, out in the winter forest, with its bare trees and snow. A winter coat, and a baying to the night as she howled out loud.

But first Aliyah. Aliyah’s eyes had gone… cat? Pi’s own vision was still grey scale, which meant the wolf hadn’t been pushed back that far, not enough for Pi to retain colour or for her eyes to change back to normal, but at least for now she wasn’t about to shed her human skin and morph into a vocally restricted canine.

And Aliyah needed her, needed them both. The rational half of their pairing that was Elliot and the less rational, but entirely practical half that was Pi. (although, she wasn’t being entirely practical right now with her mini-hysteric). It was Pi who leaned forward this time, reaching out with one hand where Aliyah had used two, but just like Aliyah came close to touching but didn’t. Her eyes looked feline in the shape of the iris, definitely not canine. Light reflected off the pupil, opaque glistening that spoke of a feline stretch or narrowed gaze before a long purr.

“Your eyes are beautiful Aliyah. Feline yes? Can you feel them change when they do?” Pi asks softly, wondering just how much of this phenomenon Aliyah is aware of… if at all. “Mine.. change when I feel… strongly about something. I know it’s happening because, everything turns grey with hints of blue and red, like heat signatures really. Like the wolf, my wolf.” Pi smiled softly. “She’s beautiful, white fur with a barely recognizable light brown ruff.”

“Do you know know your eyes have changed?”

Turning she gave Elliot a nod, a very quick one, because he’d said really important things and they couldn’t be ignored because something had happened to change the topic of conversation with a dime spun u-turn. “My cabin is good and it’s not rustic at all.. it’s rather big and rather… swish. Sky is using it but she can help us work something out. Maybe be Aliyah’s flatmate? Help her? Maybe?”

“Aliyah?” Pi asked, letting the woman digest what she’d asked before saying anything else knowing Elliot had asked questions the woman hadn’t answered yet but knowing they were important things to know.

[Lancaster]

Elliot frowned at the two women. He frowned at the entire situation. He frowned, because the fact that they were waxing feminine over the shape of each other’s eyes, it didn’t seem to register with him. He wanted to tell them to forget about their ******* eyes. So what? They changed colour and shape according to whatever animal their soul was, or some ******** thing, but there were bigger fish to fry. It continued to shock him, that he could accept things so readily these days. Where anything and everything inhuman and different and wrong had once rubbed him entirely the wrong way, now nothing seemed to surprise him too much. It was a sign of acceptance, and it shouldn’t bother him. But it does, sometimes. He worried that he would lose his humanity completely, and it would happen slowly. Like a frog in slowly boiling water that didn’t realise it was dying.

Though Elliot wanted to ask how exactly she knew that her wolf was beautiful – without second-hand accounts – he didn’t. His arms were crossed over his chest, and where the women had sat down, he remained standing. His mind remained on those questions that he had asked. How much time did they have?

And he frowned, because Aliyah was worried about the state of the place she was pretending to live in. Whether or not they accepted she lived there didn’t matter, and her blatant refusal of the place that he and Pi had offered was kind of grating. It wasn’t helpful. She was not helping them to compose any other enlightening solution.

”Are you incapable of lying?” Elliot asked, finally. He didn’t say anything about the women’s eyes. Maybe later, he could ask Aliyah. He could let his curiosity run wild. Why a cat? But not right now. He was already afraid that this next question would also be forgotten and ignored in lieu of discussion about eyes. And this question was as pertinent as the others. Elliot himself was incapable of lying, which meant he probably shouldn’t be present when these prodigal parents did show up. And if Aliyah was burdened with the same curse, then they’d have an even greater problem on their hands.

He probably shouldn’t be angry, but he couldn’t help himself.

[Aliyah]

Those green slitted pupils blinked in utter confusion. Had she felt a difference in her eyes? Aliyah turned her head to look around the apartment, finally registering the differences in her vision. The color of the room had faded to a somewhat grey-washed version, the outer focuses somewhat blurry, but she was capable of seeing just as well at a distance and the subtle shifts in motion. It was definitely different, but she hadn't felt the change. Her anxiety had possibly distracted her to the point of missing it.

"I didn't know...but I can tell now..." she whispered, rather intrigued with the change. Instead of turning to look back at the couple in the apartment, she allowed herself to gaze around the room to adjust to the difference. "Your wolf sounds beautiful, by the way, Pi." The end was added as an afterthought, though it was no less true. The wolf did sound beautiful, and maybe someday she might get to see if. When they weren't about to deal with possible vampire secrecy.

Elliot's change in tone was hardly subtle, and she peered up at him with a flare of her nostrils. She could tell that he was growing irritated, but she couldn't help her curiosity. Part of her wanted to snap at him for growing annoyed, as he knew better than most the struggles she was facing in this city. She hadn't had a mentor, anyone to give her advice and tell her how the city worked. This was new, something interesting. Something happening to her that wasn't going to end with a possible catastrophe...and he couldn't even let her have that.

His question made her raise an eyebrow, as if he had asked something incredibly stupid. "I...think so? I haven't really tried?" she replied, shrugging up her shoulders. It was true, she hadn't had a situation that required lying as of yet, though she had managed to avoid offering the whole true. Did that count as lying?

To test a theory, she pursed her lips and did her best to remain straight-faced. "I can't stand either of you," she muttered, looking between them. Nothing aversive seemed to happen, leaving her to assume it was safe to lie, and she was capable of it. She never had been a good liar, though, and was quite sure that both Elliot and Pi would see right through it.