#can't play rn because my gaming computer is 12 hrs away

[tea-with-eleni]

Hers was the first sentient blood you ever dared drink.

In truth, you don’t know why you did it. Perhaps it was just that you wanted to break as many of the chains he threw over your life as possible. Perhaps it was the way she looked at the world with such innocence that you found her irresistible. Perhaps she just had the misfortune of setting up her bedroll closest to yours.

You think you want her to wake up. You want her to see that she shouldn’t have been so ready to invite just anyone to travel with her — psionic connection or not, she allowed a predator into her camp on a few moments’ acquaintance. You want her to turn on you.

Of course, she doesn’t.

“I’m a little hurt you didn’t say something earlier,” she whispers with a soft smile. “I’d like to think I’m understanding, when it comes to things like blood demands. I told you, I think I’m the Dark Urge.” Her silver eyes look as red as yours in the firelight. The scars at her throat ripple a little when she swallows, hard. She is nervous, you can hear her pulse, but she also isn’t lying. She tugs at the laces of her shirt, pulling it a little away from her neck. “I trust you. Take what you need.”

She’s a fool. Or perhaps not — you also notice the fingers of her other hand twitch, beginning to gather the weave. She can call fire as intuitively as you can, part of your shared elven heritage. That actually calms you. If you do lose control, if her blood does overwhelm you, she’s ready to defend herself.

You accept her offer.

Nothing could have prepared you.

You thought, that first night, that nothing could compare to the game animals you stalked in the darkness. They were already so much better than the vermin he made you drink. It was the difference between peasant’s gruel and fresh buttered bread. If a boar is fresh bread to you… she is the richest cake, something worthy of a royal wedding. You aren’t sure if you believe the superstitions about sorcery being part of the blood, but it would explain a lot if it is. She tastes like power.

She has to ask you to stop, but you are able to draw back. You feel a little drunk. She presses her fingers to the oozing wounds at her throat with a slight wince. “I’ll feel that tomorrow,” she whispers. “Did it help?” She looks at you and her eyes narrow. She has seen her blood, still on your lips. She frowns slightly. “Did… No. You would have remembered.”

“Is something wrong, darling?”

She shakes her head. “I thought, for a moment… I don’t remember anything before the nautiloid. There’s just blood.”

You wish she hadn’t said that. As potent as she was, you do still need more. You can’t drain her dry. You make your excuses, though she seems lost in her own thoughts, and vanish into the night.

You hunt well.

It isn’t surprising that she comes to your tent before breakfast is even ready. She’s a little pale, a little less steady on her feet, and, oh yes, there are the marks from your teeth at her throat. “About last night.”

You raise an eyebrow. Part of you wants to convince her she dreamed the whole thing, but she isn’t angry. She’s far too understanding. You admit you aren’t a true vampire. She accepts it. Is she truly this accepting, or simply stupid?

“In the spirit of openness,” she says with a smile, “Your condition punishes you with weakness if you don’t drink blood. That’s straightforward enough to deal with, although I don’t think we’ll like the results if you just take mine. Especially since my blood calls for me to kill anyone and everyone and decorate the camp with their intestines. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s normal.” She says it so sweetly. Her posture, her expression, hells, your dim sense of her through your psionic connection… she’s serious.

You’re not sure how to respond to that.

You settle on what you already decided to say before she approached, that you’re happy to make meals of your little band’s many enemies. Perhaps the deaths of bandits and goblins will be enough for her as well, although you’d prefer her to keep the redecorating to a minimum. She agrees, although she sounds a little uncertain. You laugh and suggest maybe she could keep a skull or two around. Her smile turns teasing and she jokes about scaring you off, how she isn’t at all sure that she isn’t the bigger danger to camp. You assure her that you can still drain her if you have to. Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice of words.

The rest of your companions seem rattled, when they overhear your conversation. She defends you. She’s very good at persuading them. She does not mention the part where you technically threatened to kill her.

Over the next few days, you realize that she’s confided her own form of bloodthirst to several of your band already. None of them took her seriously. It unsettles her, how easily they brushed off her peculiarities. She asks you, when you have a quiet moment, how you deal with your own dark urges. You avoid the subject but her question stays with you.