Irene Didn’t Look Up Right Away.

Irene hadn’t meant to be out this early, let alone in this weather, but something in her had pulled her into the downpour anyway. Maybe it was the pressure in the air, that humming, bone-deep ache that came when storms gathered their skirts and began to spin. Or maybe it was just that sleep hadn’t stuck the way it should, and the silence inside had grown too loud to bear.

She wasn’t dancing. Not really. But she also wasn’t not moving—hands tucked into her coat, hood drawn low, boots soundless on the wet pavement. There was a rhythm to the rain that pulled at her limbs, loosened something usually kept tight. She walked like someone thinking too hard about nothing at all.

And then—motion. A blur of color. A voice, sharp in its brightness.

Irene stopped a few paces away, rainwater trailing slow down her jaw, catching in the curve of her collar. She blinked once, then again, like she wasn’t entirely convinced the figure in front of her was real. And then her mouth quirked—barely—but enough to register.

“You’re gonna break your neck dancing like that.” It wasn’t scolding. It wasn’t teasing either. Just dry, and maybe a little impressed.

Her eyes flicked across the slick street, then back to Allie, still beaming through the storm like it hadn’t dared touch her. Typical. “Didn’t peg you for a rain chaser,” Irene added, quieter this time. “Guess I was wrong.”

She didn’t move to leave. Not yet. The sky hadn’t cracked open wide enough for that.

who: open to anyone wandering about ! ♡ where: Outside . / when: (Very) Early Day One, Hurricane Jac .

         she’d been hoping for rain, hadn’t she? and maybe she always is, but sometimes, it’s different than a want, and closer to a need. like the earth when it thirsts for growth, or a girl that wants to forget, and be washed clean, and forgiven. sometimes, she just needs to grow a little greener, too. and she’s not storm chasing, exactly. when she was younger, she’d tremble right along with the thunder. now, she’s outgrown that, and the talk of a hurricane feels like a distant nightmare that it’d be silly to fear. now, there’s only rain, and her walking takes on an air of wandering soon enough, and then she’s dancing right along with the song the sound of droplets make, the soft call of wind.

         the pavement grows slick under her feet, and in between a twirl and some kind of stumble, she slips. it’s only a moment, a soft breeze that draws an even softer squeal from her, but it does snap her attention away from only whimsy. through the rain, she thinks she can spot another person. like this, the water becomes a mirage, and she thinks they might be dancing too. or maybe it’s just the rain. either way, allie calls out to them with a beaming smile.  “ oh, sorry, i didn’t see you there! ”

“Mm.” Irene tilted her head slightly, like she was considering whether to answer or how much to give away. Her hand hovered near the tin she’d just nudged back, fingers idling at the edge like they hadn’t quite decided what to do next.

“You’ll get names eventually,” she said. “But names don’t matter as much as habits.”

She shifted her weight, leaning one hip against the shelf. Her voice stayed soft, steady. Not whispering — just quiet in that way people get when they know too much and don’t like wasting breath.

“There’s one who wears gloves all the time. Doesn’t shake hands. Always asks about the fire exit but never uses it.” She glanced toward him, holding his gaze for a second. “Don’t let him sit with his back to the wall.”

Then a shrug, like maybe that was too much detail or not enough. “There’s a woman who comes in once a month to leave something under a seat cushion. You’ll think she’s harmless because she tips too much and smells like cardamom. She’s not.”

She let that hang a moment.

“And if anyone brings their own glassware,” Irene added, “don’t ask what it’s for. Just take your break early.” She didn’t sound afraid. Not even particularly rattled. Just resigned — like she’d been on the wrong end of these people’s stories before and didn’t see the point in sugarcoating it. “You’ll be fine,” she said, after a pause. “You’re already asking the right kind of questions.”

Then, almost like she was remembering something else entirely, her gaze flicked back to the mug in his hands.

“And if it ever feels like the lounge is... watching you? That’s because it is..”

Things that look like people. Half-forgotten debts. He took another sip, trying not to dwell on the fact that it had drawn him in as well. There was little reason in the way he’d stopped on the listing for Obsidian and hadn’t bothered to look elsewhere, and he felt less and less like a person with every passing day, since Jyoti had been put into the ground.

“Somewhere quiet, where they could meet or make deals, I can offer. I’d have to figure out where the previous owner was sourcing the blood...” Jaya said, drumming his fingers on the sides of the mug. It cannot be through legal means, not to an establishment like this. “I... don’t particularly like the idea of serving it in crystal stemware. Both for sanitary purposes and in general.”

Potions-witch or not, Irene was offering him real answers. He’d be a fool to refuse. “Who should I look out for?”

Irene blinked against the brightness of the laundromat lights, the hum of the machines loud enough to fill the silence between them. Her jacket still smelled faintly of dried mugwort and something acrid from the burner at work —something half-finished she hadn’t meant to forget.

She didn’t meet Shiv’s eyes right away, just stepped in and let the door fall shut behind her.

“Nothing,” she said after a second, like the word had to work its way through a wall first. “Maybe I just need to wash some clothes.”

It was a lie. The kind that didn’t even try to convince.

She hated asking favors. In general, she hated asking anyone for anything. It made her feel like she owed something back, like she'd cracked open a door she couldn’t close again. But the Shahs… her dad had trusted them. Said it more than once, like a scratched-up record he couldn’t stop playing. If anything happens to me, find the Shahs.

It was even in the will. Right there with the money he left her and a half-page of careful handwriting that tried too hard not to sound like a goodbye.

So maybe it meant something. It had to.

She dropped a small canvas bag beside one of the empty machines, but didn’t open it. Arms crossed loosely, fingers tucked beneath sleeves like they might betray more than she was willing to admit.

“Place felt quiet tonight,” she said, her voice quieter now. “Too quiet. I figured I’d go train for a bit.”

There was a pause. Not quite hesitation—more like a space to breathe.

“You feel like joining?” she asked, finally glancing his way. “Could use the company. Or, I don’t know... maybe just the noise.”

WHO: @ireneclermont WHERE/WHEN: Wash Tub Laundry / Late Evening

If Shiv had a nickel for every secret Brotherhood witch they knew and had a detailed case file for, they’d have two nickels. Two nickels with uniquely different baggage Shiv had no clue where to begin with. 

Gemma’s case was less cause for immediate concern. If things blew out of water, Gemma still had her brother and father to cover for her. That wasn’t the case for Irene. She’s an outsider coming in; Irene has no one within Port Leiry’s Brotherhood Sect to come to her aid in the worst case scenario... No one except Shiv that is. 

Technically all that Asim wanted in his will was a watchful eye on the Clermont Girl but Shiv found themself acting as their fellow hunter’s keeper unprompted. Not that Shiv's father could blame them. Compassion is a Shah bad habit: plucking up weary hunters and taking them under their wing like stray cats needing a home.

Tonight Irene comes into the laundromat with a glint in her eye. The kind of glint that gives Shiv pause. “Clermont.” Shiv stands up from where they were sitting behind the front desk, turning their full attention to the young hunter. “Working late again, I see. How can I help you?”

The bathroom door creaked open, and Irene blinked as the girl stepped out —mud-slicked, bloodstained, and stitched together with a kind of too-bright smile that didn’t touch her eyes. Irene didn’t move right away. She just stood there in her long coat, one hand shoved in a pocket, the other cradling a half-empty thermos of coffee gone cold.

Her gaze did what it always did—took in the shape of the girl, the uneven breathing, the way her hair was carefully arranged like a curtain. Irene didn’t need to see what was behind it to know what was there.

She’d seen that look before. In mirrors. In alleyways. In morgues.

The question made her tilt her head a little. A gym. It was such a soft, almost laughable request, spoken with the kind of desperation that tried to pass for casual. Irene didn’t laugh.

“Nearest gym’s about five miles and three lifetimes from here,” she said, voice flat, but not unkind. “And even if you found one, they’d probably want a membership card. Or at least shoes that don’t look like they got in a fight with the terrain and lost.”

She took a slow sip of her lukewarm coffee, eyes not leaving the girl’s face. The park light above them buzzed faintly, casting shadows under her eyes, giving everything that washed-out glow that made the world feel just a little too thin.

“You’re not from around here,” Irene said, not a question. Just a fact laid out neat and quiet between them.

Her tone wasn’t accusing. Just observant. Just practiced.

She shifted, letting the pause stretch a moment too long before offering, “There’s a community center down past Willow and 9th. Showers. Heat. No one’ll look too hard if you don’t give them reason to.”

A beat passed.

“You hurt anywhere bad?” Her eyes flicked to the girl's arm, where dried blood clung to torn fabric. “The kind that’s not healing like it should.”

Another beat.

Then, in that same even tone—quiet enough not to scare, sharp enough to be heard—she added, “You’ll want to watch what trails you take out here. Woods can be… unpredictable. Things stick to you.”

She didn’t say what things. Didn’t need to.

Instead, she shifted back just enough to clear the doorway, giving the girl space to pass. Her gaze lingered a moment longer on the edge of that hair curtain, but she didn’t press. Not yet.

“I’m Irene,” she said finally, like it mattered. “If you’re lost, I know my way around.”

She gave a slight nod, like she wasn’t just talking about directions.

open: to cor residents where: overlook park

   the journey to get to the city wasn't exactly how camila thought it'd go. she was new to town and didn't know a thing about where to go or who to see; if there even was a plan? either way, she was quite literally a mess. having to hitch hike in the middle of the night, and leave everything she once knew behind wasn't easy. she could still feel that...thing biting her neck. and she could still see the bodies of her parents. she also missed her...their family.

getting lost in the woods however, was the icing on top of the cake for camila as she wasn't exactly the 'hiking' type. she almost always relied on....her, to guide her through on camping trips. with no source of light, camila had managed to trip and stumble down a rather steep incline which led to a few bruises and scratches — which seemed to be healing? too freaked out to think of that, she shakily took the paper towel & ran it under the tap. 'the dried blood and mud on her clothes wouldn't budge, but she could at least clean up her face' she thought to herself.

camping out nearby, she heard knocking on the bathroom door. "i'm...i'll be out in a minute!" she said aloud, as the park washroom wasn't the most ideal place for her to try clean herself. but with her money running low and the car she had to abandon on the highway, she'd make do. putting a fake smile on her face, she used her hair to cover her neck before she's unlocking the door.

"sorry, i'll get out of your hair - uh. do you know where the nearest gym would be?" camila asked quickly, trying not to draw too much attention to herself.

Irene didn’t flinch when Shiv’s hand landed on her shoulder — the weight of it familiar, grounding. She let it sit there for a second, two, before her gaze shifted, sharp eyes scanning the shimmering horizon behind them.

The sand still whispered wrong beneath her feet. Magic in too many layers. Riven’s magic. It stirred like oil just beneath the surface — thick, slick, and sour-sweet. Something about the way it pulsed made her stomach pull tight.

This wasn’t just a trap. This was a loop. But why?

She never wished to be in their head. Not now, not ever.. and yet, here they were.

Her fingers flexed slightly around Shiv’s wrist.

“You're not the type that needs tracking,” she murmured, almost more to herself than to them. “But you went missing anyway.”

Her tone was even, but her jaw stayed set. Beneath her skin, the hum of too many unanswered questions burned like static.

Then—Thera?

She heard the name echo back at her, and for a moment, Irene just looked at Shiv. Really looked. Their confusion was real — not acted, not played for deflection. There was an absence there that hadn’t been there before. Like someone had gone through and cut out whole hours of their memory with surgical precision.

Her heart dropped, low and hard. She didn’t show it.

Instead, her lips pressed into a line and her eyes flicked to the edge of the dunes again — reflexive now, like she expected something to claw its way through. But it was just heat and mirage and silence.

Not the good kind.

She stepped a little closer, keeping hold of their wrist. The contact was starting to buzz now — faint, like a wire fraying somewhere between them.

“You don’t remember her.” It wasn’t a question.

Irene’s breath went out soft, deliberate. Her other hand rose, gentle but sure, brushing a line just above Shiv’s temple — not quite touching skin, but close enough to feel the threads of magic humming underneath. Weakened. Strained.

Instead, she looked Shiv in the eye and said, “What do you mean? Thera’s keeping you alive right now.”

She didn’t wait for the weight of that to settle. There wasn’t time. The sand behind them had started shifting again — just slightly, but enough to make Irene’s pulse tick faster at the base of her throat. She hated this place. Too bright, too open, too... unreal.

She reached down and took Shiv’s hand in hers, firm and warm and real.

“We can talk more when we’re out of here,” she said, nodding toward the faint outline of an archway shimmering in the distance — a door forming, slowly, between dunes. A weakness in the fold. Maybe even a way out.

“Do you like the beach?” she asked, like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t stitched to a hundred memories of nights spent escaping and surviving and forgetting how to breathe.

Her grip on their hand tightened just slightly.

“Let’s walk. Keep your mind open. Just enough for me to hold on. I’ll handle the rest.”

She glanced back once, the heat behind them already thickening into something with teeth. Her voice was low, steady — a whisper, not a plea. She'd answer their questions, as long as they were somewhere safer.

“Don’t let go.”

Irene makes contact and the sand underneath Shiv’s feet feels just a little more solid, grounded. Maybe it’s just a placebo effect, the false reassurance of having someone they can touch and see as supposed to voices in the wind and a phantom’s touch against their skin. But, placebo or nay, they'll take it. 

“Since when have I been the type that needs tracking?” Shiv shakes their head as they laugh and smile, “Seriously, it's good to see you. I mean it.” Shiv plants a hand on the younger hunter’s shoulder with a firm grip. “Fantastic work.” 

Despite what the dream would have them believe, they don't actually have all the time in the world. If they did, Shiv would have taken a moment to give Irene her flowers, additional words of praise and notes of improvement every hunter needs to continue the onslaught.

Unfortunately, they don't have the time nor brain power to ask Irene how she got here. Shiv’s already got so much to wrap their head around as it is. Instead they nod along. “Right. Steady…Steady?” 

They fail to hide their confusion, their smile becoming nervously forced and uneasy. What does steady mean in this context? Steady as in stable? If so, mentally or physically stable? It’s hard to say if they can achieve either at this rate.

The confusion on Shiv’s face multiplies as Irene mentions another person. An accomplice maybe? Brows furrow, body slightly leaning forward as they parrot back, “Thera?”

The name feels familiar on their tongue but any and all tangible memory is missing. 

Despite how hard they try to think or recall in that moment, there is simply nothing there. No link. No connection. Just the same all-consuming static that comes when Shiv tries to remember how they got into this mess in the first place. 

“I-I mean, yeah. Yeah. I’m okay. Obviously could be better- I’m sorry, are you okay?" Before they know it, the panicked dread weighing on Shiv bleeds into their voice, "Are you hurt? What of Sammy? Or the twins? Is the rest of the Brotherhood alright? Have we been breached?”

“...And who’s Thera?”

She almost smiles at that — almost. It doesn’t quite make it past her mouth, gets caught in the corner like it’s not sure it belongs there. The bag still digs into her palm, but she doesn’t shift, doesn’t ease the pressure. Let it bite.

"You talk too much," she says, quiet and without heat. Like she’s telling him something he should already know.

Her gaze flicks away just once — toward the ocean — not because she’s afraid to look at him, but because the sea says more with silence than he does with all those cheap words. She listens for a beat. The crash and pull. A rhythm she’s known longer than she’s known her own name. It doesn't scare her. Not really.

“The water doesn’t ask for your permission,” she says after a moment, still watching the waves. “It just takes. That’s the difference.”

She finally shifts the bag to her other side, fingers tingling from the weight. She doesn’t mind the pins and needles. They make sense. Pain usually does.

Her eyes cut back to him then, flat and sharp like a blade that’s been sitting too long in salt air. “And I’m not looking to be liked. Least of all by a storm.”

A pause, long enough to be intentional.

“But if it wants to take me, it’s gonna have to earn it.”

         the wind starts lashing out at him, sharp and cutting. it whistles, even more piercing, it might just make his ears bleed. a punishment for sticking this out, pain to make a smarter man turn back, to make the animal fear the lash. césar doesn’t give a fuck. he likes it, the way it curls around him, seethes, the way it’s fury wrapped into something natural. he likes the taste of it on his tongue, the smell. he likes it. he’s sick, and he’s twisted, and he’s cursed. but in the middle of danger, with adrenaline begging its way back into his system, at least he feels alive.

         “ storm doesn’t like me. ”  césar ignores his choice of her words. of course she’s here, he’s here. everyone’s fucking crazy. whoop de doo. she knows it, he knows it. so what the hell are they still doing here? he keeps talking to fill the time. his boredom, at the center stage of concern. primarily.  “ the sea never does, ‘s not a … reciprocal thing. ”  damn, chiquita’s got him breaking out the 50 cent words, or whatever. the water’s where he’s been for two years, that same water has held him times when there weren’t hands to do so, and, besides, that when there was a brother who did. who always did. but césar’s got nothing to do with that.  “ silly lil’ sea bitches always end up dead, anyways. ‘s prolly no good, to be liked by the storm. ”  before, it had been just aimless, bored musing. now, he looks at her, judgy eyes and all.  “ you don’t seem to be the biggest fan of it though, the water? ”

The wind had teeth out here.

Irene hadn’t meant to come this far. She’d walked until the roads narrowed and the town thinned behind her, until her ears were full of the sea’s growl and the storm’s hush. Her boots stuck twice on the walk down to the rental lot, the mud soft and mean beneath the heels. She could feel her wards straining —distant, but tethered still—and every bone in her body whispered that she should turn back.

She didn’t.

The dock looked abandoned, lights off, boats lashed in neat crisscrossed lines like some ritual offering to the waves. Practical. Smart. Not enough to keep anything truly safe. She didn’t expect to see anyone, let alone the figure mid-run at the edge of the dock.

Irene stopped short just as the woman jumped.

Not slipped. Not fell. Jumped. Clean. Deliberate.

It was the sort of motion that knew gravity’s rules and simply chose not to care. The sort of leap that wasn’t meant for onlookers. So when the woman surfaced—sleek, sharp-eyed, at home in a way that made Irene’s skin feel too tight—she held her gaze, because looking away felt wrong. Unkind, even.

“You know,” Irene said, once the silence had grown long enough to deserve words, “Most people call it a day when the storm starts naming things.”

Her voice didn’t carry well over the wind, but she didn’t raise it either. Just enough for the other woman to hear, if she wanted to. Just enough to be real.

She didn’t ask what she was. Didn’t need to. There were some things you didn’t poke with language.

Instead, Irene’s hand found the railing, fingers brushing over the salt-slick wood.

“I won’t stay,” she added. “Didn’t come to interrupt.”

But she hadn’t moved yet, either. The kind of stillness that came from knowing you weren’t the only one who’d come out here to remember something you couldn’t name. Or forget something you couldn’t shake.

Let the sea judge them both.

Who: Open (0/4)

Where: PL Boat Rental

If the wind were still able to fill her lungs, Ha-Jeong knew that it would taste like magic. She knew storms, had sailed in more typhoons than she could count, and this was no natural storm. But she found that she cared little for its origin. She was reminded of her centuries at sea. How she had volunteered herself for solo deck duty in almost every storm the ship had seen. It had been a selfish move as much as it had been a logical one. Her body could simply withstand more than her human crewmates, but she had also loved the feeling of being swept up in something so much bigger than herself.

She sat on her dock, the humans she usually employed to run the place summarily dismissed and sent to safer pastures. She had gone around on her own and spider tied all vessels that hadn’t been stored on racks or in the 3 operating boat houses. The dock rocked beneath her, undulating with the sea.

Ha-Jeong stood and started to remove her jacket. The other haenyeo used to call her ‘ineo’ when she had spent her decade on Jeju. That was perhaps her favourite way she had spent the 90s. She cocked her head from side to side as she took a starting position. If she was honest with herself those ladies hadn’t been the only people to accuse her of having a more aquatic than human nature. Ironic for this was perhaps the one human idiosyncrasy she had left, as she ran towards the edge of the dock, wind running through her hair, she was reminded of a little girl centuries ago who would have done the same.

As she flew over the water, the tumultuous storm current sipping around her body, she felt a presence appear behind her on the dock. As the water welcomed her, an embrace no colder than her own, she quickly broke through the surface to meet the eyes of someone who was either just brave or just stupid enough to witness her in her human indulgence.

WHO: @erisinblood WHERE: downtown.

The bell above the shop door gave its usual tired jingle as Irene stepped out into the night, one hand tugging her coat tighter against the chill. Behind her, the faint scent of lavender and burnt mugwort still clung to her sleeves — the kind of smell that never quite left, no matter how much she scrubbed. She didn’t bother glancing back at the storefront; the lights were off, graveyard shift covered by the new girl with the shaky hands and too many questions. Irene had done her part.

Now the street was hers. Quiet. Dim. The kind of quiet that hummed a little too loud in her ears when she was alone with it for too long.

Her boots echoed against the pavement, rhythm steady, clipped, her hands shoved in her pockets. The streets in this part didn’t sleep, exactly. But they did doze—lights flickering in windows, the odd car sliding by like a ghost. The kind of in-between hour where anything felt like it could slip through the cracks.

She didn’t hear the footsteps at first. Not really. Just felt that prickle at the base of her neck. Not danger exactly—just…attention.

She kept walking.

Then—

“Dianne?”

It hit her like a slap.

She stopped mid-step. Her lips parted slightly, sucking in a breath. And for a second—just a second—she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Like if she stood still enough, the moment might slide past her unnoticed.

But it didn’t. It never did.

Her fingers twitched where they curled in her coat pocket. Then, slowly, Irene turned.

The woman standing behind her wasn’t a stranger. Not quite. Something familiar hung in the shape of her —like a half-remembered song on the edge of a dream. Irene didn’t blink.

“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” she said, voice even. Too even. Too smooth. A lie she’d used a thousand times, so well-worn it might as well have been armor.

Her voice was tighter now. And under the streetlight, her eyes gave her away —just a flicker, a crack in the calm.

Because Dianne had been gone for a long, long time. And no one had said that name to her face in years. Not unless they knew something they shouldn’t.

She let the silence settle for a beat, weighing the woman with a look that was too sharp for someone trying to play innocent.

But beneath it all, something ancient and uneasy stirred in her chest.

She looked like her mother, sure. But that didn’t mean she was her.

And gods help her if someone else could tell.

tag drop.

WHO: @parkskylar WHERE: bun intended

The air still smelled like lavender and old spellbooks—clinging to Irene like second skin even after she’d stripped off her apron and locked the shop behind her. Most nights, she’d go straight home. Avoid people. Avoid…everything. But tonight, the sharp edge in her chest wouldn’t settle, and the idea of silence felt louder than usual.

So she walked. Not far. Just enough to find herself in front of Bun Intended, its neon sign buzzing faintly above the patio lights. The smell of grilled onions and toasted buns curled around her like a hook.

She didn’t even like burgers that much.

Still, a milkshake and fries sounded like something that wouldn’t ask anything of her, so she ordered both, tucked herself into the far end of one of the outdoor benches, and tried to lose herself in the happy chaos of dogs chasing each other through the patio. It helped. A little.

She was halfway through her fries —shoes kicked off, milkshake balanced dangerously on the edge of the table—when she noticed the figure hovering nearby. Looking for a place to sit, scanning the filled tables. Irene didn’t recognize her at first. Just saw someone standing alone, holding a tray like she didn’t know what to do with it.

Irene’s voice came before she could stop it.

“Seat’s open.”

She nodded to the spot across from her, then adjusted her legs to make space, even if she didn’t quite smile.