#astandrii

[clefable-time]

WIP Wednesday

Finally participating in something like this now that I've made a reminder to do so - god, I've been working on this chapter for like, eight months asdfasdads

You can read chapter one of Duets for Ruined Monsters here.

--------

He isn't sure whether it's seconds or minutes of silence that pass between them – though he could measure the passage of time by her heartbeats if he truly wanted to. His hunger rushes to the forefront of his mind at the idea, and he swallows it down. 

Just a little longer – he only has to hold out for a little while more. They'll find the damned Nightsong, return to the damned Towers, and then he can drink his fill of cultists and beasts and whatever else happens to step in front of his fangs. He has gone far longer without blood – for an entire year, once – this is nothing. 

“You haven’t been eating.”

He nearly jumps from his own skin. The telltale writhing of the tadpole behind his eye is completely absent; no, she isn’t reading his mind. His discretion must simply be faltering. 

“I’m almost insulted,” she continues. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Then she laughs – an airy laugh that he quickly identifies as practiced. Her gaze falls to the specimen jars he uses to haul blood from camp to camp, all of them empty and spotted with blackened, congealed residue. “You drained your reserves a while ago, and there's nothing alive out here.” She peeks up at him, cold eyes poking out from beneath the dusky sheet of hair she's flipped to one side of her face. 

He remembers the day she cut it, indiscriminately shearing off chunks with a dull knife until Karlach came by with her razor to even it out. The fuzzy stubble on the back of her scalp rasps over his chest.

“You minx.” He grins, fangs grazing his bottom lip – he’s far more experienced at this game, and he’s more than willing to circle in tandem with her, as warring tom cats will before one makes his decisive pounce. “Trying to change the subject, are we?”

But she simply smiles right back at him – wicked and toothy. “I am.” 

The honesty is enough to catch him off guard, and she capitalizes on even the slightest falter in his expression; she’s the one who pounces.

“I thought we had an arrangement.”

He chews on his cheek. Truthfully, he's loath to be beholden to any single source of food; he has lived that way for two hundred years. Feeding from her was less to keep himself sated (she could never produce enough blood for that – no one could) and more of a way to hold her interest. It was a way to test the limits of the tadpole – how it affected his control over him.

“We did.” He swallows. “Before.” 

Below him, she mouths the word as though it's one of a foreign tongue, feeling out each syllable. Her brow furrows, then, candlelight glinting off of her scales: “What changed?”

His loosened grip on her waist is regained as he flexes his fingers against her, digging into her skin through thin fabric. “You, er,” he says, clearing his throat. “Don't seem to enjoy it like I thought you might have.”

“Enjoy it?” She snorts - she actually snorts at the concept. “Why would I enjoy it?”

She is not stupid (nor is she particularly naive.) She knows the ways of their world and its histories and nuances – but there are gaps in her knowledge, excised from her with her memories, that leave her wanting in very specific areas. She knows how to cast a spell flawlessly but not when she first learned it; she can read the Draconic script on her choker, but can't write or speak the language herself. He'll see the frustration in the crinkle of her nose, in the way her eyes dart back and forth to search for an answer to what should be an easy question only to trip and stutter when the search comes up fruitless.

At moments like this, he is tempted to tease; it would be very easy to do so, and her reactions are endlessly entertaining. But in this specific instance, he feels what he can only describe as relief – his suspicions are correct, and the part of “tawdry vampire lover” can be tossed aside with its accompanying script – but that also leaves him without much else to say.

“There are… some that do,” he says, after taking a moment to formulate. He recalls that drow back at Moonrise – an unsavory woman with putrid-smelling blood. “It is a terribly intimate act, after all – a fearsome monster pressed to your neck, holding your life in his hands. Plenty of those books you enjoy have explored the subject further than that.” He does find an opportunity to tease her then, pulling her closer and dipping his head to nose at her shoulder – to mouth at her neck without biting. She tenses in his fingers, but remains otherwise motionless. Spoilsport. “So, I suppose that such a thing could be... romanticized.” He makes sure to purr that last word along the pointed tip of her ear, and catches her harsh shiver in his arms.

“That’s…” She squints. “...asinine.” 

He comes apart then, barking a laugh – pressing his face into her shift to muffle the noise. 

Her head whips around to glare up into his eyes. “What? Would you find breastfeeding erotic? It's the same principle; it's just eating.”

It takes every remaining ounce of his composure to resist outright howling at such a comparison. “There you go again, darling,” he wheezes out between giggles. “With that obsession of yours.” He blinks away a few tears that well up from the pressure of withheld laughter. “Should I start stuffing my shirt? Is that the secret to gaining your affection?” 

“Shut up,” she hisses. A swift elbow to the ribs paints his newfound mirth red with throbbing pain – but it's well worth the delight he takes from seeing her face scrunch up in frustration, ruffling her scales. “You know what I mean!”

He steadies himself through the stray giggles, nestling his cheek atop her head, his nose buried in her hair. “Is that how you see me? A defenseless babe who requires constant feeding?” 

“You certainly whine enough to play the part convincingly.” She draws her knees to her chest, pinning his hands atop her stomach. “All that I'm saying is that you need to eat, as any one of us does – especially with Thorm and the Absolute and who knows what else waiting for us. We have to be at our best.” She rests back against him, her shoulders collapsing with her breath. “It doesn't have to come from me, but down here, I don't see any other options.”

“There aren't,” he mutters. “I’ve checked.” And checked, and checked, and checked. It was practically torture – a subject with which he is well-acquainted – watching the cleric bleed herself time and time again throughout this maze of a temple, so eager to waste such a precious, delicious resource just to be rewarded with Shar’s next deadly obstacle course. 

Perhaps she has a point about the cleric's priorities.

------

Not tagging anyone because I don't really know anyone in the community right now -- kinda starting from scratch with this new blog. If you see this, then consider yourself tagged!