#it's the fun new take on the first blood drinking scene featuring my tav actually named tav and my sleeping durge

[abysskeeper]

Trying to figure out some characterization on the latest Tav. Word vomited whatever this is. Idk.

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“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Shit.

Astarion froze, the words brushing against the edges of his mind like the caress of a cool breeze against his face. His jaw clenched against the feeling of the bloody parasite wriggling behind his eye and he whipped around, searching for the woman who evaded his senses. He was so, damned sure everyone else had retired for the night, how had he missed her?

But sure enough, as his eyes scoured the camp in search of her, there she was, emerging from the shadows at the very edge of camp, small prayer book in hand. Blazing orange eyes met his, the color the leaves around them would turn in a few months, when the weather grew cooler still and winter approached. A fool would call them beautiful—the wizard had called them striking earlier that day—but Astarion knew better. Those eyes were the color of loss, the last warning before death inevitably claimed its rightful due.

Those eyes were as somber and bitterly determined as the God she prayed to.

Admittedly, Astarion wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. He hadn’t factored in for anyone discovering him before he claimed his victim, only what he would do when said victim inevitably awoke from his bite. She stood too far from him to be able to pivot and strike at her without giving her considerable time to react to him, and he couldn’t just delve for her sister trancing at his feet either. He had no desire to incite the holy magic of any cleric, let alone one devoted to the God who would take the most offense towards his existence.

His options were limited, and though he was loathe to concede to it, his best chance was to react instead of act. Perhaps he could talk some of his way out—no one knew what he was yet and, given his current stance, it would be just as easy to believe he was stealing from Rin as he was about to suck her dry. He could apologize for attempting and make up some excuse about how he needed the money, a sob story would probably work on Vira, and even if it didn’t, it was better than the alternative. And, if she did attack, then at least it would be easier to play the victim.

“Unless, of course, you wish to feel what it is like to have an electrified fist gripping your throat.”

She continued before he could say a word. Vira smiled—the smallest of upturns of the left side of her mouth—and tilted her head, strands of white hair slipping over her shoulder and neck with the movement. “I understand her being a sorcerer makes it seem she is an easy target, but I assure you her size is not an illusion. I can also assure you it is by no means a pleasant experience to startle her.”

Astarion frowned, eyes darting down to the other drow still trancing peacefully by his feet. He had considered Rin’s build when choosing her as his victim but, given everyone else in the camp and their specialties, she still wound up being the safest option in his mind. Perhaps he had misjudged. Perhaps Vira was merely toying with him. Perhaps it was both. He released a small sigh and returned his attention to Vira, realizing his misstep in ever taking his eyes from her in the first place.

Much to his surprise, she hadn’t moved from the edges of camp. It was a small mercy.

It also appeared to be in his best interest to attempt to talk himself out of this situation. He would downplay it considerably, and maybe grovel a bit. “I am quite good at what I do, you know. She wouldn’t have even felt me stealing—”

“Stealing?!” Vira’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head. “I suppose it is, in a sense, but I’ll stop you before you make a fool of yourself. Come, I can grant you what you need.” With that said, she motioned her head towards the woods she had just come from and turned around, receding back into them.

Astarion hesitated, watching as she disappeared into the tree line. Had she just implied…? And, surely if she had, she hadn’t just left her sister to him, right? If she had figured him out, then she wasn’t a fool, but if she had just turned her back on him and left Rin trancing peacefully at his feet then he couldn’t imagine her as anything else.

But no…no, she was still paying attention to him. He could still feel the parasitic connection faintly in his mind. She was watching him, waiting, likely wondering which option he would choose. He could still go for Rin, and Vira was far enough away now that he could likely get enough blood from the sorcerer to have a quick burst of energy to fend off any attacks. If Vira was bluffing and Dezerin didn’t immediately awaken and attempt to kill him for the intrusion, in any case. If Vira was speaking the truth, then the correct option was obvious.

Yet, the “correct” option did not feel much safer. If Vira had truly figured him out and what he needed, then she was either as much of a kind-hearted fool as he already believed, an over-confident idiot who thought she could handle herself alone against a starving spawn in the woods, or a woman with a plan. And what would it make him, exactly, if he followed the invitation of a cleric of Kelemvor into the woods actually expecting her to keep her word about offering him what he needed?

Desperate.

He would claim intrigue won out in the end. There were a lot of questions he held regarding her decisions, and if he followed her, perhaps she would even consider it appropriate to answer some. That was, assuming she did keep her word and did not immediately try to kill him, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He had no reason to believe she was lying about Rin, and if he were forced to consider that true, then he had no reason to believe she was lying about her word.

Still, Astarion stepped away from the resting party members quietly, and followed after Vira cautiously. He walked through the woods carefully, hand hovering over one of his daggers as his eyes darted around him, half-expecting the bladed end of a sword or a burst of holy magic to come flying at his head. When he moved further into the woods, he finally found her sitting calmly on the trunk of a fallen tree, flipping through her prayer book.

He was struck frozen again as her orange eyes turned from the pages to him, and her faint smile returned. “I see you chose the correct option,” Vira remarked.

“I had no idea there was an incorrect option.” The words came from him easily, even as his mind remained hypervigilant as ever. He watched her, waiting for even the slightest change in expression or twitch in her body to suggest she was on the verge of striking. “Are you testing me, Tav?”

Her smile fell at the use of her improper nickname. She had insisted half a dozen times not to be called by the first part of her given name already. He had figured correctly it was a decent way to throw her off, even if just slightly.

“It is not so much a test as a matter of your safety,” she answered, “Though I suppose my intent was not entirely without curious examination. I was interested to know who you chose; I am glad you chose properly.”

“Given the current atmosphere, you hardly feel like the proper choice, darling,” he quipped.

Her smile returned, both sides of her lips lifting as her eyes narrowed at him. He recognized that expression for what it was, he had worn it and smoothed it out a thousand times in the past two-hundred years.

Predator.

“Are you nervous, Astarion?” Vira asked simply.

“Nervous around you? You flatter yourself,” Astarion laughed. He knew better than to give an inch towards someone like her, which also meant he knew better than to concede the truth before she forced it from him. “Rightly cautious, however, would be accurate. You did just invite me into the woods alone after catching me attempting to steal from—”

“Ah yes. ‘Stealing,’” she cut him off again, just as she had with the tadpole. She tilted her head, “Is that how you refer to it?”

He frowned and placed a hand on his hip, indignant. “I haven’t the faintest what you’re otherwise trying to imply.”

“It’s just not the terminology I thought vampires used these days,” she shrugged easily. “I thought you still referred to it as feeding.”

She was bold to outright say it, he’d give her that. Still, his mouth went slack in well-practiced offense. “What in the Nine Hells—”

“Astarion,” she deadpanned, stopping him before he could even begin his rant. Her eyes all but verbally asked if they were really going to go down this road. “You aren’t exactly subtle. Between the red eyes, the pale skin, and the bite wounds on your neck you’ve done nothing to conceal, it is rather obvious,” Vira said, lifting a finger to point towards his neck. “To your credit, you are better with your fangs. You hide them well when speaking, but they’re not invisible.”

He deflated some, arms going slack at his sides while the remainder of his counterargument left him. He already determined he wouldn’t—couldn’t—deny it if she called him on it properly, and of course she did exactly that. The only thing he could get a read on and potentially control was how exactly she intended to respond to the revelation. She was surprisingly calm—far too calm about his predicament for him to trust her with the truth.

“That aside, everyone in the clergy has the innate ability to detect any undead in a certain radius around them,” she added and smirked, “It is, quite frankly, impossible for me to not notice you, and has been since we first met.”

“How charming that I’ve had your attention from the start, darling,” Astarion retorted. Slowly, his hand inched towards the dagger on his belt as he kept all of his senses focused on her. “And what, exactly, do you intend to do with that information?” he asked carefully.

Her eyes flickered to his hand and then back up to meet his gaze. “Probably less than I should, but also exactly as I said,” Vira answered. “You need blood, do you not?”

“As every vampire does,” Astarion said. He was certainly not letting her in on how dire his situation was. “And you are just…offering yourself?” he asked, unable to prevent the derisive snort he let out.

Vira shrugged again, looking down at herself and then back to him. “I suppose I am, yes,” she agreed.

He shook his head in disbelief. She was a bold one indeed. “Do you take me for a fool, Tavira?” he asked, nearly hissing. “Why would I trust you? A Kelemvorite cleric, of all things?”

“You shouldn’t,” she agreed again with a nod. “But I haven’t attacked you yet. And I am the best option for what you need now,” she shrugged. When he made no move towards her, she sighed and held out her arm towards him. “Consider it a peace offering,” she said with her small smile, “I have noticed how carefully you tread around me, and I’m sure you have noticed how on edge I am around you. This is a show of good faith, I won’t harm you. I am trusting you not to harm me, nor take anyone else from camp.”

Astarion eyed her outstretched arm. Her dusky skin glowed in the patches of moonlight filtering in through the trees, but he was barely able to focus on anything else other than the faint sound and miniscule flutter of her pulse in her wrist. She was absolutely correct in her observations, but he could still feel trepidation pumping in his veins. This was not a normal reaction towards his kind, especially not from someone of her clergy.

“Isn’t your church dedicated to hunting and eradicating my kind?” he asked, red eyes flicking back up to meet hers. “Is that not one of your core tenets?”

“It could be worse, I could be Lathanderian,” Vira joked, a wry smirk crossing her face. As quickly as it appeared, her smile fell, and she glanced away, staring out into the dark woods. “It is, I suppose, but in truth, I am not keen on waging wars with allies. I…have had enough of that for a lifetime.”

She said it softly, more as though she were talking to the darkness around them than she was to him. It felt as though that was an admittance he should not have heard, but when she returned her gaze to him, her orange eyes were momentarily weighted with a sort of melancholy. She blinked and it was gone, her gaze settling back into her usual, solemn calm.

“I made my decision a few nights ago,” Vira added, “Lord Death has not yet abandoned me for it, so I suspect that it is fine.”

She was being genuine about this. Astarion wasn’t sure why she was willing, but as his anxiety settled and he eyed her arm again, he decided it didn’t really matter. He was not one to turn his nose up at an opportunity, and he wouldn’t deny she was a kind-hearted fool for granting him this one. Perhaps that was all there was to it, and if it was truly as simple as that, perhaps he could push for more.

His eyes traveled from her wrist up her arm and to the exposed part of her collarbone. His gaze settled for a moment on her neck, watching the stronger pulse of her heartbeat with thinly veiled desire, before he met her eyes. “If that is what you decided, I would not decline. However, your neck would be far more suitable and far quicker for both of us. It would harm you less—”

Vira’s snort cut him off. “I am probably being far kinder than I should, but I am not a fool, Astarion,” she remarked.

His eyes narrowed. “I thought this was a sign of trust,” he retorted.

“It is, and I have reason to believe you would not take more than necessary if you are contained within the proper boundaries,” Vira explained, “But I have no reason to believe you would not drain me dry if I did not maintain those boundaries.”

She looked over him for a moment before sighing, the hand at her side moving to grip at the hem of her shirt. “Just as you have reason to believe I will hold up my end of the offer,” she continued and lifted her shirt some to reveal the wooden body of a stake tucked into the waistband of her pants, “But no reason to believe I would not stake you if you moved closer than I liked.”

Ah, mutual assurance, he understood that well enough and her point was well taken. He probably should have been concerned she was only now revealing she had a stake on her person, but if it weren’t for the fact she was denying him—and denying him correctly—Astarion would have smirked. Perhaps she had more guile than he initially credited her with. She was still offering at least, and he still needed to feed. These weren’t the worst terms he had operated under by far.

“Very well,” Astarion nodded in agreement.

He finally walked over to her and stopped in front of her outstretched hand. He took her wrist into his palm and raised it towards his mouth. Even without it being his preferred method, the clearer sound of her pulse pounding in her wrist and the faintest smell of her blood pumping beneath her skin had him salivating. To her credit, and to his surprise, her heartbeat remained steady, even as he lowered his mouth to her skin and pierced his fangs into her vein.

And if he happened to bite harder than necessary, if he happened to move his fangs to roll her vein and dig them deeper than he needed just to prove a point that the wrist hurt more than the neck, Vira made no movement to show any discomfort. Her gaze remained fixated on him, steady, calm orange eyes watching him with the slightest hint of curiosity. And in truth, any lingering pettiness he felt dissipated the moment the sweet tang of her blood hit his tongue.