fluttering your lashes like ashes and embers

The proffered glass was unexpected but welcome; Alastor propped himself up on one elbow to drink from it, listening to Lotte and nodding along with her as he did. Something about this felt familiar - not in the sense that time spent with the witch was familiar, but farther back. It felt like nights spent too late in the courtyards behind jazz clubs, like the last refrains of improvisational jazz filtering out to Alastor and his circle of friends, long after the dancing had ended.

He sucked down the whole glass and nearly floated up from his body. It was careful work to lay the glass itself back down on the floor. He managed, just narrowly, without knocking it over. His fingers were fuzzy. "Is that what you think?" There was no sarcasm in it, only genuine curiosity. He pushed himself up again, sat and looked square at Lotte with her pale and freckled skin. There was less stark a contrast between the two of them days ago, when he was fully demonic. "That they don't mind, in the city?"

Again, no malice, it was genuinely curious to him, to meet someone who was so...aware of her privilege, while naively assuming the danger to people unlike herself lessened, the farther one traveled from these boondocks. "What do you see when you look at me? I'd love to know." His fingers curled, drummed silently in the air, and paused tucked beneath his chin. "It's no different, in the city."