#bruh i didnt mean for this to grow into such a behemoth

[mutatedangels-a]

"Aw, stop it," Soleil was ablaze with a peachy blush, always one to fall for flattery. She retrieved the eggs, then lamented in dramatics, "Ugh! Please, take me away."

-

Two firm taps against the counter and the egg cracked open, trailing residual clear, sticky fluid from Ford's fingers onto the surface. He was on breakfast duty in the kitchen just a few steps away from where the two women were forced to chat at the table. Ford had given his sister a bit of a warning look before he and Claire walked inside the home—something to say, Don't walk away. Otherwise, he knew Soleil would retreat upstairs in avoidance of their not-so-welcome houseguest.

"Make sure ya wipe that up, Ford," Soleil told him in disgust, green eyes flitting to the pile of whites accumulating on the counter as her brother cracked one egg after the other. She would have scolded him more, but it seemed like her brother was fixing up breakfast sandwiches for the table. Her favorite. One of the few things she could stomach if she couldn't have her first choice. (Which was, pure blood, of course.

Could'ja maybe drizzle some on top, like hot sauce or ketchup or somethin'? Nobody'd know the difference!

Soleil, you are despicable.)

The little sister was all saccharine-sweet whenever Claire began asking about the sigil. Claire didn't have to finish her word for Soleil to know. It was somehow embedded in Ford's warning look when the pair first walked in.

There was something anomalous about the blonde. Soleil could sniff it up this close that she wasn't just a plain human. Whether she possessed clairvoyance or something else. She wasn't an old-enough vampire to sniff it out accurately, but at this point, if she had a feeling, she'd hoped Ford had, too. Except, he seemed to be slipping. Perhaps allured by the woman's beauty, which was undeniable to say the least.

And when was the last time Ford got a long with a woman?

Leave it to Soleil to clean up Ford's mess, although Claire seemed quite insistently curious about it. All the years they'd had that sigil on the tree and not one townie mentioned a thing. Now here was some pretty girl that Ford picked up from the side of the road like a stray, asking questions. Soleil herself would never invite such a sleuth, no matter how easy he or she was on the eyes. (Never mind that she wasn't able to control who asked about the sigil and who didn't...)

"Oh, that stupid tree carving?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"It's the funniest lil' story. One time in middle school our class took a field trip to the St. Tammany Parish Historical Society." Then, a rambling monologue about all the things she'd seen that day, buying Ford some time to finish the sandwiches. "...My classmates and I saw that symbol in one'a the exhibits and had competitions to see who could draw it the best. We were so over that stupid little 'S' you drew in middle school, if y'know what I'm talkin' about?"

Ford's voice suddenly cut through, two sizzling plates of breakfast sandwiches in tow. "Alright, Soleil, enough'a your monologue," he said in scolding. He offered Claire an apologetic look, the siblings upkeeping the charade of being clueless. "Eat up, you two."

As he spoke, Claire felt at once a territorial pull toward the thing and also a self-preserving urge to run from it. The duality didn't surprise her; she was used to feeling cleaved by her warring lineages. She leaned in closer, eyes narrowing. The lines of it - more organic, carved crudely here, sure, but in essence considerably freer and more rounded than the angular sharpness of her own family's sigil and those of the lesser urban covens.

"You saw her do it?" she asked, flicking her head back to ask the question. Did Soleil really put it here? And if so, what sort of book had she gotten her hands on to find something like this? Did they even know what kind of trouble they were inviting, leaving markers like this for all the wrong people to see?

Claire wasn't especially gifted. The fact that she had any heightened abilities at all for a halfling was remarkable and owed only to the strength of her father's bloodline. What little ability she did have, she had no conscious control over. It came and went as it pleased. And now, triggered by some inborn alarm system, that scent which had first struck her upon entering the Smith home came back to her flowing sure and steady across open fields. Ford reeked of it. She couldn't tell from here, but she'd bet Soleil did too.

And something God awful occurred to her just then. A fear she didn't want to voice aloud - not in front of Soleil, for one, and not now, when she hoped she was just overcome by the discovery and therefore overreacting.

Because if she was right, the Smiths were being fed upon by one of those swamp trash covens and they surely didn't even know it. And she no idea what to do about it.

She didn't know what else to do other than take his offered hand and follow him back to the house. If she was right, that house wasn't any safer than an open field, but it felt like it was somehow. Four walls and a locked door with no welcome mat.

"Hi there," she forced herself to greet Soleil with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. It wasn't this poor woman's fault, whatever was going on, and she needed to be a good house guest. Almost as much as she needed answers. "Thank y'all so much for accommodating me. I won't be a bother, I promise. And it's just beautiful out here. You're the cutest thing! I never had a little sister, but if I did, she wouldn't be as darlin' as you by a mile." She held the basket up in offering. "We, um. Ford. Got eggs. Do you know anything about that sig-" she cut herself off. The word sigil wouldn't and shouldn't mean anything to them. "That sign, carved in the tree by the strawberry patches? It's so.. peculiar."