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As usual when Eyrgjafa's hosting a meeting with members of her Family, she's organised a time for Henevi to make the trip to her house in Lansdale. Light can be seen around the drawn curtains in the front room, and a purple Prius sits parked in the driveway.
Henevi happens to live part way out to Lansdale already, so the trip isn't quite as long as it might be if she lived in the city. You can't get enough land for an estate like hers so readily in the city. She shows up in a large land boat of a BMW 7-series which she pulls up and parks behind the Prius before getting out from behind the driver's seat. The black BMW and her flowing, rather sheer attire is kind of strange, but she doesn't care, just closes the door and makes her way up to the door to ring the doorbell.
A moment later, the door opens, revealing a smiling Eyrgjafa. "Hey, cousin. How're you? It's been a while since we saw each other." The younger Daeva's dressed fairly casually: knee-length denim skirt and a black teeshirt reading "Bite Me" in red.
"Eyr!" Henevi exclaims in answer. Her arms come up and she steps in, already offering a hug. "It has been too long! Far too long. What a few weeks? Both nothing, and too much time. I love the shirt, that's very funny."
Eyrgjafa's more than willing to accept the hug, returning the embrace. "Thanks. I saw it browsing for something to get Mina, since she did well on her exams." She releases Henevi then, leading the way into the house proper. There are the usual scattered signs Eyrgjafa's not the only inhabitant - a raincoat that looks too small for her on a hook by the door, soccer trophies on the mantlepiece - but they've been joined by a few carefully painted miniatures and some oddly shaped dice on the coffee table since Henevi's last visit.
"Oh, she had exams?" Henevi is pretty clueless about how the modern school system works. "Did she win?" She slips her sandals off by the door without really thinking about it and glances around. "Your house always feels like such an ordinary home. I think. How is Mina doing, exams aside?"
"Good, I think. She's at that age where everything's very dramatic, so it can be hard to tell sometimes." Eyrgjafa smiles at Henevi. "How's Lamara doing? Anything interesting happen at the business?"
With an aghast tone Henevi asks in purposefully overly-acted dramatic fashion, "she's 900? Why didn't you tell me she was as old as I am! I thought you were my friend!" The fact that she's around 900 is part of the joke, of course. "Lamara is doing well! She started dating Atalo, which is quite a surprise but also delightful. The business, though? What do you mean?"
Eyrgjafa snickers at the joke, before blinking at Henevi's confusion. "The one she runs for you? I suppose it's not strictly a business, but it's close enough, I would have thought." Beat. "I didn't realise that she was dating Atalo now, though. When did that start?"
"Oh her little club!" Henevi gets it now. "I think it's going well. I just go and have fun at the events sometimes, and spend more of my time with the members who have decided to devote themselves to me. I don't know that much about the business side of things." She just moves on, since it's not that interesting to her. She adores Lamara, but she has no head for business. "It was a few weeks ago. Maybe a month or two? I don't keep close track beyond when the seasons change. Tonight, in fact!"
"True enough. I'm celebrating it later, but I don't know if you'd be interested in taking part. My rites are rather different to yours, after all." Not least because Eyrgjafa doesn't consider herself a god, minor or otherwise. "I've actually been meaning to ask you about what dating while a vampire is like, though. I haven't really done anything of that nature since I was still alive."
"You could come join my rites if you wanted to," Henevi says with a sparkle in her eye, at least in a proverbial sense because she's not blushing, and her eyes are fairly dead. "I'm sure my devotees would be glad to have you join as well." She glances toward the living room. "Should we go sit? I don't really date as I think people these days do. I don't really understand it myself."
"Sure thing," Eyrgjafa says, leading the way towards her seating area, sitting in one of the chairs with her knees tucked against its back and bare feet dangling over the edge. "I'm not interested in anyone who doesn't know to make allowances for my age, of course, but Floretta and I are trying out being in a romantic relationship, so there's some adjustments involved just because of the passage of time."
Henevi follows, and when she sits she pulls her feet up underneath her as she settles in to listen. "You and Floretta? Well good for you! I'm afraid I don't really have good advice for you there. I haven't had a relationship with another vampire that wasn't simply friendship or purely physical in as long as I can remember."
"Fair enough. I can always ask others, but I thought you might have suggestions." Eyrgjafa shrugs one shoulder. "On a different note, how familiar are you with the Nereid situation?"
"A little," Henevi says with a casual shrug. "It's a curiosity, but they've been around forever and I don't spend much time near the water, so they haven't been a concern. They got Clayton, which is a problem obviously, but I haven't been in a hurry to pursue it, either."
"Fair enough," Eyrgjafa nods. "Things have developed since then, of course, but I won't burden you with all the details unnecessarily." Beat. "I did want to ask if you'd be interested in summoning spirits to try and find Adelgrief's library, though. There may be relevant information in it, but nobody who knows where it's located is willing to share that information."
That seems to be more interesting than the Nereids themselves. "Really? I thought everyone had largely given up on that search, but I suppose that never stays the case forever. Someone new always comes along to try the search again. I couldn't deal with spirits the last time the idea came up, and hadn't thought to ask them."
Eyrgjafa nods again. "In this case the specific 'someone new' is a problem, mind, but if we can get to it first we can always stop them using it against us."
"Rihat?" Henevi nods. "Seeing if we can get to it before him makes sense, for certain. I think that help from someone else might be in order if I want to have a conversation. Most of what I have the skill for is command. Doable, though."
"Oh, well, if you need help talking to the spirits you might want to go to Rena. I don't know if she can summon them, though, which is part of the problem."
"I know someone else who can help, but I'll keep her in mind as well." Henevi lets out a thoughtful sound. "How much do you know about spirits?" she asks. "I'll have to work out what kind of spirit would be most likely to know what we need. Maybe one of secrets."
"Not a lot, honestly. It's never been a field I've especially delved into. I wouldn't even have thought of it without Shiri's suggesting it when I met with them," Eyrgjafa admits. "Do you mind if I ask who the someone else you're thinking of is?"
"Really?" Henevi offers an impish smile. "You know there are spirits of fire or sunlight, don't you? I was interested in knowing how to deal with them as much to be prepared for that kind of problem as anything else. Fortunately, they're very susceptible to bribery." She flips a hand casually. "Anyway, that's not the point. It's Phaedra."
"Really?" Eyrgjafa blinks. "I knew she was a diviner, but not that her talents extended to dealing with spirits."
Henevi silently considers Eyrgjafa before she answers. "She's a blood sorcerer," she explains. "Don't underestimate what else she might be able to do. It would be like assuming that a Daeva isn't a physical danger because they know Majesty."
"Something many have not lived to regret doing, I know," Eyrgjafa agrees. "Allowing ourselves to be underestimated, to be thought of as merely the pretty ones, is one of our clan's greatest strengths, after all."
"I personally prefer people not underestimate me, because then they're more likely to try to do something annoying and foolish, but it can be useful sometimes." Henevi laughs. "The last time someone severely underestimated me I almost had to kill them when they came for what was mine, which is a tremendous annoyance."
"Oh? I don't think I've ever heard that story. Was that before or after you settled here?" Eyrgjafa seems genuinely interested.
"Before," Henevi says with a shrug. "It was a foolish neonate who though that I was more defenseless than I was. It's not much of a story."
"Fair enough," Eyrgjafa shrugs. "I am glad that's not really something we have to deal with here very often. The amount of petty backstabbing I saw just in the few months I was in Oslo... I'd say it'd beggar belief, but of course you've been around more than long enough to be familiar with what our kind can be like."
"Oh yes," Henevi laughs much more darkly. "My homeland was a miserable place for a vampire, even if a lovely place when I was a mortal. I'm from the Maldives, and the entire place is 300 square kilometers. There were a dozen vampires in the entire place and not much for them to fight over, so the fighting over what there was became quite bitter."
"I thought Reykjavík was bad enough, but at least back home there was plenty of hinterland to spread out into," Eyrgjafa says, shaking her head briefly. "Not an area smaller than even the official limits of Philadelphia on the mortal side of things."
"Don't forget divided into smaller islands," Henevi adds when Eyr gets the crux of the problem. "I should probably be on my way," she adds as she starts to get up. "I do have that ritual tonight, and I'm looking forward to it."
"I'll walk you out, then," Eyrgjafa says, rising as well. "I hope your ritual goes well. Say hi to Lamara for me, will you?"
"Yours too," Henevi says as they walk to the door together. "I'll send your regards to Lamara, of course." She slides on her sandals and then offers another hug. "It was good to see you."
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