Starlight
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04 de enero 2025. 19:00. 4 January 2025
centro de la ciudad de cádiz, españa. city centre of cádiz, spain
Winter lingers over southern Spain, which isn't usually a problem – it saves them from the excruciatingly hot weather summer brings, after all – but does result in darkness cloaking the city of Cádiz long before it would in a different month of the year. They don't really get snow, so the extent of winter is just lots and lots of rain and otherwise mild temperatures. It's fine.
It does mean that, when the clouds clear and the sun or moon peeks out, it's prime time for exploration. Rina much prefers to do this with her friends or her stepbrother Ros. It's hardly fun to be all alone, anyway.
Tonight's one of those nights. Their father is still at work at the docks. For Rina, this means freedom. She's not really sure how Ros takes it. Sometimes she thinks freedom's not really his thing. Maybe growing up alongside those weird wizards will do it for you. Rina has a lot of opinions on wizards. Most of them have intensified since her first instance of magic a few weeks ago. She still hasn't told her mamá about it – she can't, and she doesn't want to, at any rate.
She loves freedom, but she doesn't really want to leave.
Anyway, she practically begs Ros to come out with her this evening. The sky is clear, with bright white stars twinkling against velvet night. People laugh and chatter in the streets. Rina even offers to let Ros hop on the back of her bici and hold on for dear life, even though she knows he'd probably turn down the offer. It's the thought that counts.
The cobbled streets of the city centre beat against her Vans as she attempts to drag Ros along with her. She's not really going anywhere in particular. Maybe if he's hungry they can duck into the hamburguesería she really likes. It doesn't matter. She just wants to be outside in the starlight.
But then a sight, flickering against the white of the buildings, makes her stop right in her tracks. She doesn't really care if someone bumps into her. —¡Ostras! Holy cow!— she exclaims, her brown eyes widening. —Ros, ¿lo ves? Ros, you see that?
The spectre, clad in what Rina assumes to be 16th-century noble wear and sporting a sabre (a sabre!!) glances towards her, scowls and promptly slips through the wall of the building. Well, damn. —Sigámoslo, Let's follow him,— she says, turning to her brother, her eyes shining in the hints of light above. A mischievous grin starts to show teeth.
@Alejandros Espinosa
| [pc] livia machavariani 'bloodlust is the ticket and contrition is fraud.' |
Starlight
Credit to Marigold Wesley
@Marina Alacrán
Cádiz felt like a different dimension, sometimes. At home there were rules and eyes, but now that he was a little older his mamá would let him spend the day with Horacio without her there, and spending the day with Horacio really meant spending the day with Rina. Horacio was still at the docks. He wasn't around very much for Ros, and Ros didn't think he was around much for Rina, either. He thought they might both like it better that way. A father's eyes meant a lot of judgement, so if he wasn't around and his other father wasn't around, he could exist for a while in a pocket where the eyes and the rules didn't exist, or at least he tried to pretend they didn't.
It helped that Rina seemed to defy rules. It didn't help that Ros was always sure they were going to get in trouble for something. In a way, they balanced each other out, though Rina was more often the one tugging Ros forward. He didn't do much tugging back, even if he did drag his heels and frown a lot. He wanted her to have fun, and to have fun with her, and for her to not think he was boring. He didn't want to ride on the back of her bici, though. There was a difference between fun and falling onto stone.
When he gave up on complaining, he let her pull him out of the house and into the city, old and alive and starlit. Night muted all the colors, but people found a way to make it beautiful, anyway, bathed in warm streetlights and bright luces de neón neon lights (what Rina had called the vibrant colors in twisting shapes and letters when he asked a few years ago). He thought Rina was on some sort of mission, because to him she usually looked like she knew exactly where she was going, and he took in the city sights as they walked past them. His family didn't often let him walk around the muggle parts of Marbella. Rina probably didn't know, because he hadn't said, but he did love seeing the city as long as he could keep his head quiet enough. Otherwise he worried about shape-shifting in front of someone he shouldn't, or seeing some other Andalusian pure-blood, which would inevitably reach the eyes and ears of the Espinosas. Then this wouldn't be another dimension anymore.
Those thoughts were distant now, though. He was thinking about lighting and about asking Rina for muggle streetwear tips again, briefly dazzled by the clothes of a man walking past. Then he was caught up in a quick sidestep to not run into the back of Rina as her strides ended. Stopped alongside, he looked to her first, eyebrows slightly raised, before he understood that she'd seen... something.
It took him a second, he didn't know what he was looking for. But the old-looking ghost was most out of place. —¿Si? Yes?—he answered, voice lifting higher in confusion. The city of Cádiz was old and so unsurprisingly ghost-filled, though he'd never run into one with Rina before. Whatever plan may have existed before was quickly thrown out and over their shoulders, abandoned to a call to follow him. Ros sighed. How were they supposed to follow him if he'd already disappeared into a building? —Vamos, entonces. Let's go, then. He didn't manage to sound very begrudging. Rina did have a bright, contagious smile. He showed no teeth, but the corners of his mouth pulled into his own, smaller one. With Rina there were no rules; they might as well chase after a ghost.
Aislin Darragh (PC) • Bridget Collins (1st gen PC) • Phylicia Stanwood (1st gen iNPC)