Elysian Sihr

@Mari, but open to crashers :3
Dressed like a tramp vamp

---

This was the bar, and this was the night. She waited for Mari to show, and was not so opposed to seeing her Andromalius either. Maybe she could introduce them to each other.

Drag queens pranced up and down the aisle. She held out singles for them to take. She liked them; they defied norms on the nightly.

There was a temptation to ice every drink in the room, but she'd wait for the other woman before she did.

outfit

---

Bobby had told Mari about this place, something she would realize only as she came rolling up to it. Elysian. What a fabulous name. She hoped she'd see him here tonight. If not, that was alright - she had the mystical and mischievous company of Zareen, the not-vampire Queen whose goth energy she could probably not even come close to touching. She had decided to show up in black, at least.

And she was not hard to pick out of the crowd! With a drink securely in her hand, she came sashaying up beside her newest friend, and fixed her with a sultry smile, batting her long fake eyelashes. "Fancy seeing you here!" she chirped, spirits high.

:3

---

Andromalius was never far away, it seemed. And unlike the other night, when he had been all low and morose, he had outdone himself tonight.

The chirp was a chirp that was loud enough to cause him to pause, look away at them from where he stood with his company and drink, and place a hand on hip.

Fraternizing aristocrats. My my my.

There she was! Zareen smirked as she whirled in, looking like a real lady compared to whatever demon queen Zareen was. "Fancy like you," she fired back, still feeling out how to like, interact with someone she wasn't actively trying to destroy or otherwise embarrass. It was okay. They were here to embarrass other people.

"Wanna pick a victim?"

Fancy like her! Mari laughed, charmed by the little joke, and winked. It wasn't uncommon for her to be thought overdressed, probably. To choose a victim, huh? She eyed the crowd a little loosely, unfortunately missing their fabulous mutual friend, and tried to determine... who might be worthy of torment. It was always a social experiment for her - Zareen's brand was not quite the same.

Maybe someone who didn't quite fit in here. Her eyes landed on some blonde woman, and it was easy for her to profile the lady. All fake smiles and scandalous hemlines. Nothing Mari had never done, but certainly the kind of woman she'd been catty with time and time again.

"Blondie in dark blue," she hummed thoughtfully, tilting her drink vaguely in the stranger's direction.

Women in this bar had no business being prettier than the drag queens, Zareen decided. She approved of the choice, smirking. "Nice. I don't like her face."

She was holding a drink, which made things fairly easy. Keying in on the water in her drink, Zareen swirled it up, then sent a tiny splash right up against her nose.

Just enough to make her think she'd been clumsy, even if she wasn't.

She tossed a wink over at Mari.

Zareen didn't like her face! Mari snickered, and then again a little louder when her drink flicked up into her face. She caught her companion's wink and smiled at her deviously, tickled by the game. "Bravoooo," she cooed wickedly. "You pick the next one." Mostly, she wanted to see the sort of person the gothic goddess would choose of her own accord. Wasn't everyone judgemental in their own way?

She looked to a woman who looked equally out of place here as the other one did, but for the opposite reason. Lonely, sloppily dressed, likely someone without a sense of social status.

"That one," she nodded to her, the wallflower against the opposite wall of the club.

Zareen went to the other side of the spectrum where patrons went, some homely little thing who'd curled herself up against the wall. What was she doing here, Mari had to wonder. Maybe a baby gay trying to find her niche.

"Oh," she pouted playfully, some cruelty in the tuck of her lower lip. "Little lamb. Go easy on her."

Oh? Was Mari not planning on doing anything tonight? Zareen pondered it, and then decided to just... contemplate the uselessness of said person. No drink. Nothing interesting about her. Well!

Victims didn't get mercy. She began to condense the water in the air around this woman, watching as her hair in particular began to drip with water.

And then she froze it, a sheen of thin ice coating her locks. The woman was alarmed, naturally. Zareen was pretty pleased.

"You're gonna have to do something now," she nodded to Mari.

Mari watched, too, for sheer fascination. Where the woman's unflattering hairdo had just been dry, it was not so now - which was perhaps a cuter look, honestly - and then it was frozen stiff! Mari whistled lowly, unbothered. It was just a little ice. She'd be fine! She'd just experienced literal magic, after all!

Zareen's demand earned a look of surprise, and then a laugh that was more sheepish than she would have liked. "I can buy you as many drinks tonight as you want, babe, but my magic don't work like that." And how weird was it to even refer to it as magic. She didn't wave it around with the prowess that Zareen did. "I can't even control it."

Record stop. She... couldn't control it? Why was this the first Zareen had heard of that?

She tilted her head, giving Mari a little look of... it wasn't quite incredulity, but maybe some very low-key relative of it. "Do you practice?" she asked.

The question earned an almost playful shrug, batting her eyelashes as her shoulders rounded up near her ears. "I mean. No?" She laughed again, a more practiced sound. This was a new venture for her altogether. Was she totally being judged right now for this?

Who knew they had black magic and then just... didn't fucking practice. What a waste. Zareen was absolutely judging her, but the most important question to answer would be the next one.

"Do you want to?"

If she'd known Mari didn't know shit, she wouldn't have suggested this outing together at all. Least not until she did.

Honestly, before Diego, she'd had no fucking interest in magic whatsoever. It was sort of inconvenient, despite being a literal life-saver! Zareen made it sparkle in a different way, and it was hard to explain. And really, even if she hadn't wanted to practice it, well. With this woman looking at her with that intense look, with her wild floating and water abilities, who the fuck was she to say no?

So she grinned anew, toothy and sly. "Hell yeah." A pause, and a gesture. "Just not... here." What was she even going to do, send a crowd of people sailing around? She didn't wanna fuck up any drag queens, okay!

Alright. Well. That was something. But Zareen wasn't smiling.

She didn't realize Andromalius was here, but if she had, she might have gravitated them both to him. Instead, she, like. Ushered Mari towards the exit. This was embarrassing, and Zareen didn't do embarrassment for herself. So she rejected it for a more stony face.

"So. Probably should get you practicing wherever you... feel comfortable, or whatever," she said as she walked behind Mari through the crowd. She wasn't sure why she was invested. Maybe because Mari had seemed cool at first and now Zareen didn't wanna be wrong.

The package was on the move.

Diego batted his thick fake eyelashes, head screwed and turning after them in clicks. When it became crystal clear that the nearest door was the exit, he excused himself from present company with a placating smile, stepping away to wander five steps behind the opening Qandisha and Xiomara left in the crowd, shoulders slack and back.

He had good faith that he could trail without losing either she-devil.

Zareen got stone cold serious on her! Mari laughed again for it, and where she was suddenly being herded to the door, she sputtered a little. Wait! Tonight? O-fuckin-kay, then! It was grounds to chug her still-fresh drink, ice smacking her lacquered lip.

"Okay, okay!" she piped, finding a table to abandon it on at random on their way out. "You gonna have to crash course me, here." Seriously. How the fuck - where even to start, man!

Crash course her. How did you even do that, honestly?

"What's... what you do again? Force field?" she asked, sucking in the cold air from the open door. Almost there.

Unaware they were being followed.

Five steps later, he eyed the abandoned glass.

Distance closed as they reached the door. It was less congested.

One step behind them now. Diego looked from one woman to the other, as if he'd been part of the conversation the entire time.

Zareen questioned her ability, and Mari squinted some, shrugged, trying to decide if there was any better word for it. None that she knew of.

The cold air reached for them with bitter welcoming arms, and Mari wished she'd worn a jacket. There came some sensation, some magnetic buzzing at the corner of her awareness, pulling in such a way that she began to speak and also look over her shoulder at the same time. The third person in her midst startled her enough that her initial response simply skyrocketed into a shriek of surprise, birthing an immaculately timed trigger for her power.

In an instant, brown eyes blasted to grey, and her shield exploded away from her in something akin to a spherical heatwave, enveloping the three of them together instead of blasting the entire world away from her.

---

miss

Force field? Yes? No?

It didn't matter. In what felt like the space of a split second, Mari's eyes lit on something else, and she realized someone was behind her, and then Mari screamed, and then Zareen screamed also, and!

She screamed also, hands flying up and fingers gnarled like self-defensive claws. But the world outside the three of them seemed to envelop in a wave of warmth, and with her eyes she thought she saw something sizzling beyond them. Beyond the three of them.

Beyond...

"Andromalius!" she snarled, grabbing him by the lapel.

---

grab success

One: hello hermosa, said his smile as Xiomara's astonished gaze turned to his.

Two: oh, to be Diego, he who could evoke such spirited, terrified, responses simply by appearing.

Three: why had Qandisha never thrown herself at him like this before? It was fabulous.

The heatwave washed hard over him. Which was to Diego's favour, considering that he was effectively shirtless in December. He reacted to the snatch with a deep throaty chuckle, putting up no fight and horribly undeterred by the snarl. He did keep his hands off Qandisha, though.

Hard to miss the sound of some nonsense screech. Beauregard was in flight, traveling purely to find trouble.

Wasn't difficult to find a trio that practically struck him in the beak with sheer edibility. Some sort of dramatic incident was happening here, and how could he be expected to do anything but watch?

Landing on the rooftop nearby, he wondered if they might begin to fight each other. He was absolutely not above taking clumsy sips of whatever body they left behind.

There was a shimmer of sorts around them, now that he looked a bit closer. Blinking, he cocked his head to the side, merely watching from his comfortable rooftop haunt for now.

---

skippable

Xiomara did not immediately recognize him through all the makeup, but his dazzling smile rang a distant bell. Familiarity to his chuckle as Zareen snatched him by his open blouse and snarled in his face like the absolute bad bitch that she was. Who the fuck was... Andromeda? Oh, fuck it.

She broke into rich, warm laughter, despite still shaking from her blasting crest of adrenaline. The force field clung to them still, glued to her wild feelings.

"You gotta be shitting me," she said, almost delirious. What a small world. What timing.

There were many ways Mari could have responded to his presence, to Zareen knowing him. But Zareen hardly expected laughter and that kind of comment. She set her gaze, still lingering as a glare that had been on him, to the woman.

"What — you know him?" she asked, and now she wasn't sure if she liked that or not. But you'd picked the bar, Zareen.

Ciao! Diego was still here.

He followed her gaze to Xiomara, holding it for a moment, but before she could answer or at about the same time as she tried to: ”This’ our first time meeting,” Diego the troublemaker stated for the both of them, wholly composed.

”Charmed,” he added, extending an arm around Qandisha to offer Xiomara a handshake.

Zareen glared and questioned, and Diego speared whatever answer she might've had in the ribs. What sort of shifty game was this drag queen playing at tonight, huh? She guessed she could play along a little, maybe see how well Zareen took pranks. As if Diego spooking them both was not anything to go by.

"Charmed," she parroted with a heavy sigh, the glimmering wave of her shield beginning to evaporate as she grabbed her sense of composure. Her darkening eyes flicked to the other woman, a mischievous smile curling her mouth. "Who's your sneaky friend, chica?"

In retrospect, he recognized one of the trio. (He would recognize the other at a better look, but the current angle wasn't quite so whorish.)

At least two of them had to be psychics, but he would guess all three. Was this one of those pacts, playing out right here in his territory?

Beauregard wasn't sure he liked that, particularly with the fake vampire here. But she didn't seem to be in charge, at least!

---

still skippable

Oh. They hadn't met before?! Zareen squinted, and then looked from one to the other. A little jealous how much it seemed like they matched wavelengths or whatever.

What the fuck was this guy's real name, anyway? But also, who cared.

"Andromalius. And this is Mari."

>:[

Mari. Mari? Little liar, she was.

He stiffened as he was enveloped back by the cold. ”Where’re you both running off to? I could join,” he dazzled, pulling his hand back to stroke the bottom of Qandisha’s hair. Soothe.

Andromalius! What the fuck was that! Mari smiled sweetly where she wanted to bark a laugh, feeling distantly like this wouldn't end well. Whatever, it would be fine. She was being wheeled off on some fucking ridiculous adventure.

Where were they off to, huh? She looked to Zareen with a smile like an inside joke, feeling very much like she was playing a game for two opposing teams. Meddlesome. "Secret hot girl shit," she informed him, the smile blooming into something a little more sultry. Which, hey, fucking reminded her. Where Andromalius stroked their mutual friend's hair, she swiped exuberantly at her arm. "Hey! That thing - I literally just fucking did it."

God, did she have to be spooked into using it all the time? She was going to age too fast for that shit.

He was brushing her hair and Mari was touching her arm and Zareen was a cat but the kind that got overstimulated quickly during unsolicited petting and then got aggro about it, which if she'd known that about herself she could have maybe managed more kindly, but here she was.

She took a small back step after a second from between them both, just. Eyeing them. Secret hot girl shit. Yeah. Smirked back. But Mari did that thing. What thing. The warm thing?

"Warm force field thing?" she asked to confirm. "Make it stop. Do it again. I wanna see it happen on purpose."

She glanced to Andromalius. He likely remembered her pushing him too.

The hair wandered away. Diego was left pulling the sides of his blazer in to stay warm.

”Aii, yes. Find the button,” he motivated Mari!

Zareen shied away, and Mari recognized that movement. She would respect it without lingering on it, not quite the type for guilt, thinking instead of the command. She laughed, almost exasperated, but you know. Cooler. Stopping it, at least, was no big deal, because it was fading fast on its own, glittering away into nothingness now that the threat was gone. But Zareen wanted to see it on purpose, and Diego or whoever he was added fuel to the fire, antagonizing with his pretty face.

"I'm not there yet," she decided with a smile. It was always an adventure, being in the spotlight, but it was less fun when it was shining on a flaw. Who would have ever thought that her distance from her own power would end up fucking embarrassing her. "The only time it turns on is when I get scared." Which seemed like a very unwise thing to confess in front of these two people who had their magic shit together, or whatever.

No see — that wasn't gonna work for her, right? Mari wasn't gonna walk into some shitty vampire date and decide she had to be scared to protect herself.

"You don't really wake up one day and get there. You make it happen."

Maybe right outside a club was a bad space to do this, but. Since when did Zareen really care about inconveniencing other people.

"Try to force it. Whatever thing happens in your head. Startle yourself into it on purpose."

She folded her arms.

They were quite a trampish trio. He did not have to guess what brought them together. But so many delicate little emotions swirled around. So much chest puffing.

It sounded a bit like someones were practicing! The fake vampire was doing her very best, but who could be scared on command?

It was Beauregard's duty to help. Conveniently, they weren't wandering far, so he simply sought to influence the girl in the spotlight to feel immediate, absolute terror for ten or so seconds, unless she ran off or found some other way to stop him.

Qandisha wasn’t wrong, but Mari wasn’t a show pony like he was. He didn’t imagine she’d care for pressure or carrots!

In a bid to inspire her to startle, Diego began to sneak behind her. His plan was to deliver words, create a scene in her head.

Little did he know that as he re-entered her bubble, someone would get to her head before he had the chance to.

Mari didn't mind being told what to do, in the right scenario. This threatened to be properly embarrassing, but she took it with a grain of salt, and some idea that, yeah, this was... probably good. She didn't have to prove shit to nobody, okay, but in the presence of two very slick magical people, why fucking not try. Just a little bit.

She didn't really get that far. There simply came a feeling like an icy hand, squeezing her whole body, freezing her to the core like Zareen in that god forsaken lake. It came on so suddenly, with no apparent stimuli, but she didn't really clock it - there was just fear, and nothing else. It punched her in the gut, and just as it had before, that impenetrable heatwave exploded away from her. Once again, it enveloped her companions as well as herself, shoving away bits of dirt and litter on the cold ground like a hot wind.

Meanwhile, her heart thundered, and the entirety of her digestive tract tied itself into a knot, making her nauseous with terror. She was going to die.

---

lol I linked the wrong thing last time but miss again

She did note him creeping behind her. She didn't really want her to have a stimulus though — Zareen wanted to see her reach it herself.

It would be too sudden that it happened again though. This time, she registered it for sure.

"You fucking did it!" she said, a hand clenching into a victorious fist. Even though she kinda looked like shit for it. "Hold onto-"

And then stopped, because the chick actually looked like she was paler with fear. Zareen was bad at... understanding that, and her brows furrowed before she looked to Andromalius for an explanation.

That would do!

There was that rush of shimmering air, a dancing of dust for some soundless shockwave.

Beauregard stopped his unkind trick, though truly, he'd done her a favor. Perhaps now she could find herself frightened any time she thought about it again!

An open mouth—as he prepared to utter his first magical words—would be met with a gulp of steaming hot air which blew his hair back. Diego tried to breathe it out, but he could only cough dryly from surprise, nose on fire.

Andromalius would be useless for a moment. He did, however, remember to clap a slow applause.

Maybe a countdown next time, Mari?

It was fortunate that there wasn't much in Mari's gut to begin with, because it was most certainly going to come out. She registered this truth somewhere between Zareen's cheer and Diego's theatrical applause, and she eyed them like a cornered animal as she grasped just how strange she felt. Besides sick, besides a little scared and incredibly confused, she had some sort of hold on... something. It wasn't wholly alien, was it? Like holding a yoga pose real good, or balancing a spoon on the tip of her finger. Was that this stupid fucking magic?

She tried to focus on that instead of anything else, but it couldn't keep her from losing what little she'd had to drink. She turned away from them both, bent at the waist and the knees in her fine dress, and retched up a lovely string of liquor and bile. Charmingly, it splattered against the tangible edge of her force field, giving it some greater idea of shape. Spherical, for the record.

Oh. "SHHIT!" Zareen yelped, but thankfully she wasn't hit by splatter since Mari turned around anyway. Then she laughed, because who wouldn't after that kind of close call.

She moved to clap her on the back.

"That's disgusting, Mari."

That was uncalled for, wasn't it! Little trio of drunks, perhaps.

Beauregard, at very least less tempted for a nibble now, turned to hop further up the rooftop, then take flight.

He'd find something less messy for dinner.

Unfortunately, his coughs were too mild and too temporary to blissfully distract him from Mari's next move. Diego's lips turned down in silent disgust, knowing better than to say-

Nevermind. Qandisha spoke it for the both of them.

"Disgustingly wondrous," he clapped her gently from the other side.

Zareen laughed, cussed, slapped her on the back. Disgusting, she harped, and there was Diego to back it up with another back pat. Mari groaned, wiped her hand with the back of her mouth, grateful for expensive lipstick that didn't smear.

Why had she gotten so scared? Was that just her fucking modus operandi? That was a pretty damn good reason to not use her power. Along with an ugly little sight that caught her eye - a blemish on the outer curve of her hand. Hives. Ew.

"I got no idea what just happened," she confessed, looking at the sky, away from her hand, her companions. She dropped the feeling of balancing something in her soul, and watched the shield melt away. "But I think it's time for me to get drunk." And wash her hands and wish she could brush her teeth.

Disgustingly wondrous.

Alright, alright. She could... relax for a minute. Sure. "Go for it."

Zareen would be designated driver for them, happily, because she wasn't into getting sloppy anymore.

Diego offered to help up Mari without touching any part of her that was near the splattered mess. "I'll buy," he said, smile curved. Then he could control how much she drank! Not too much.

And while he wouldn't drink himself, that didn't mean Diego wouldn't be having a little bit of his good kush.