It was at lunch period when Athena made her move. Wordlessly, she stood up from her usual table and motioned for Zoe and Zelda to follow.
"Hi, Melissa," the goth smiled smugly as she sat across from the former cheerleader, her two companions sitting at either side of her.
"What do you want?" Melissa's voice was uncharacteristically snippy and bitter.
"We know how hard it is to be in this school without a coven," Athena wove her fingers together under the table, unseen. "And we know what it's like to feel abandoned by the world." She wasn't casting a new spell, but rather activating groundwork that she'd already established. This wasn't a spell of control, but of persuasion. Athena was guiding Melissa into seeing things from the goth coven's perspective. The magic was simply augmenting her words.
"And you're offering me, what," Melissa subconsciously resisted Athena's magic, "an alliance? A disgraced cheerleader with a bunch of vampire kiddies?"
"Disgraced cheerleader?" Athena brought a hand to her chest in mock surprise as the other continued to weave through lines of magic, "You're more than that. You're one of us." A tug of a finger, a pull of a magical thread, a new avenue of thought created for Melissa to follow. "How can you have an alliance with people who are already your kin?"
Melissa felt a tug on her scalp, and only then noticed that, at some point, Zoe and Zelda had gotten up and moved to sit at either side of her. They were now braiding her hair into pigtails. It felt right. Comfortable. She didn't stop them.
For a moment, Melissa and Athena simply regarded one another, cool eyes meeting cool eyes. Then a slow smile crept its way onto Melissa's face. No more words needed to be said.
