text stringlengths 0 41.4k |
|---|
"Ha! Cannibalism! How droll. I say why not," Astarion unclasped the bow on his back, fingers quick and well practiced. "Perhaps they taste like fowl, hm?" |
Quinn heard the echoing sound of laughter the tumbling tree side. "Well, there we have it," and withdrew their blades, biting their lip clean through in preparation, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" |
Astarion flinched before he saw the first hint of blood on their dear leader's mouth. Blessedly, the scent came last, but not before the amethyst skinned Tiefling liked a flame down one of their swords, literally drawing the meat of their tongue across the flat and set it alight. |
Any other month and Astarion would be wetting his mouth in eager anticipation of drawing that one to a corner for a good fucking. In the face of weeks of scant meals and a hard road, all he wanted was to rip their throat out. He considered asking, after, but it would have to wait. |
The harpies descended quickly. There were all of six; after the last run in they all had some experience with the demonic chickens of the air, and it was hardly a worry. No, as Wyll cracked out a blast of cold energy at one, striking her in the wing, another dared to lunge towards Quinntav. |
Their resident Blood Hunter. |
A twist of body and blade, it could be called a dance the way they moved in place, cutting the bitch's wings clear off and somehow sidestepping the bulk of her naked form. As she tumbled screaming across the earth, Shadowheart swung her mace like a croquet hammer, and bashed the beast's head into meat. |
Astarion did his part, falling back and away from the scent of red from the creatures falling to the earth, but unable to escape the smell of Quinntav's life blood. |
It was a siren call. No one else compared in its lure, at once both cloying and metallic, as spicy as the oil they sometimes used to dress their skin or sharpen their steel. Astarion had no idea what it was about them that was so different from any other he had longed to taste, but he knew that there was a hunger in hi... |
Astarion snapped to attention, and snapped his bow up at the same time, taking one of the things in the eye as it narrowly avoided the Barbarian's reach to pluck at him instead. Assuming him weak. |
The harpy hit the earth, like the rest of its breathern, but it squirmed to its feet, bearing it's throat in a song of it's own. Before it could begin to wail, a blur of color alighted on her back, and Quinntav was there. Striking, stabbing, again, and again, and again. Astarion knew that sound, he had heard it several... |
The harpy had stopped moving by the time the Cleric shouted Quinntav's name, and they halted in their fun, standing, blood soaked and grinning. |
"Well!" Out of breath, if just a touch. "That's one way to skin a chicken!" |
Astarion was trying to get a grip on himself, closing his eyes to the smell and ignoring the rolling in his drying veins. The Harpy stench did nothing to help, but despite everything Quinn's still held strong above all else. |
"Man, Q, you sure you didn't miss your calling as a Barbarian," Karlach asked them, Astarion focusing as the red Tiefling smacked the other on the back, the Hunter failing to flinch, but grinning in a way that gave a flash of their own twin tipped canines. "What was that you yelled before? Something about meat?" |
Quinn winked towards the vampire. "I had Astarion in mind, what can I say?" |
"Do you think this is funny?" Silence dropped over the bloodied camp at Astarion's yell, but he frankly didn't give a damn. All he felt was rage, and the damn hunger that overpowered it a hundred fold. "Do you think I enjoy this?" |
"Fuck you all," he spat and stalked away, away from the camp, away from those bastards behind him. But there was no escaping it. Even is he left the ruins and descended towards the trees, his pace refusing to pick up despite the incessant need: there was nothing out there for him, nothing besides tree rats with fur sti... |
"Leave me be, wretch!" |
Quinntav refused to back down. All of their light steps were lost as they ran down after the vampire, Astarion jerking away before he could be touched by a reaching hand. Quinn took it back, but then there were those eyes, wide and drowning in red. Some said his eyes were like rubies, but when he looked into the guise ... |
"Please, don't go alone." |
"Why bother to stop me? I see the way the others watch. I see how aware they are of the monster that sleeps among them." |
"Monster"?" Their pretty face twisted into anger, so different from the one they wore while cutting into their own flesh before: "Astarion, did one of the others call you a fucking monster?" |
"No, you simpleton," Astarion snapped, confused, furious, the former making the latter worse. Were they attempting to defend him? "It needn't be said at all," he forced himself to temper his voice, aware of what would happen if the others heard him yelling. Astarion was aware of how the others sought out Quinn, with ea... |
"Did you have anyone in Baulder’s Gate that we could try to contact?" |
"What the fuck are you talking about, now?" |
"There must be someone we can use a Sending spell for to tell them that you're safe. Someone who can help you with what you need-." |
The change in topic was so damned sudden, it sent him mentally reeling. Someone concerned for his safety; really? "Are we talking about my keeper, the wonderful man that made me who I am today, because unlike Wyll "Hero of Hearts" I don’t happen to have an army of fans salivating for my safe return." |
"Not, not a lover, even? A friend?" |
"No," he spat. "I have no one. Do you honestly think that I might have a troupe of dalliances in the capital morosely awaiting my return? Faithful donors coming and going at my beck and call, eager to fulfill my every whim and desire?" |
"Yes," Quinn tilted their chin down, but continued before he could argue, "I did actually assume that there would be someone, and I’m sorry for being an ass in assuming anything, Astarion. Only, after knowing you for as long as I have I thought it just, well, made sense." |
Astarion was shocked, so much so he managed to ignore the ever pulsing draw to their blood, still yet staining their mouth. He considered them carefully, swallowing down the venom sweetened saliva in his mouth. "Are you telling me that in our wonderfully thrilling time together you have enjoyed yourself, somehow?" |
Quinn laughed shortly, "Did you think I was drawing the short stick every time we’d been paired off to go scouting," they asked, and motioned around them. "I know we are the light foots of this merry band of arseholes, but every time, Astarion?" |
Astarion huffed in frustration. If he were a century younger Quinn would be on the ground, his fangs in the Tiefling's throat, but as it was the headache pounding behind his eyes served as a somewhat decent distraction. No, not the headache, but the worm behind it. It must have been wriggling in there, ever so excitabl... |
"Why, Astarion, one could almost call that a pick up line-." |
"Insufferable, that’s what you are. If I wished to woo you, Bard, you would know. Trust me." |
Quinn laughed shortly, a dry thing, far less than the merry chuckle they were keen to, or the battle happy hurrah so akin to what they were on about before, over the Harpy's eviscerated corpse. "What about one of us?" |
"Excuse me? Did I miss something or did I not make it clear that if I were making advances it-." |
No, bat brain, I mean your meals," Quinn cracked another grin as Astarion felt his hackles rise. "Bat brain"? Really? "If you need blood, we have a Cleric." They waved upward, towards the camp, towards their waiting party members. "And we have plenty of blood among us. I know the others aren’t receptive, but-." |
A twig snapped underfoot. A few pebbles rolled down the slope. Astarion's face was inches from his companion's, close enough that he could see the startled set to their gaze, and the gradual widening of their pupils with his sudden proximity. "Finish your sentence, darling," he sneered, daring them to make the wrong mo... |
A parting of lips, so close Astarion could dip forward and taste the copper there. "Astarion-." A hush. |
"I do not need your aid to survive. I have done as much for two centuries, digging in the gutters of that trash heap of a city you all call a safe haven. While you danced aboard the stage and sang your delightful ballads, I scrambled, I crawled, I clawed my way into survival. Do. Not. Insult me, Hunter." |
The forest had become still. Astarion could hear it, or, more like, the lack of it. No humid breeze of the nearby sea, no twitter of bird song, or any other scurrying creature. And Quinntav did not back away, did not balk, did not snap back, and glare. |
"I insulted you and I need to say sorry for that." |
Astarion flung up his arms: "What the hell is wrong with you!" Damn his regrets, they didn't mean a thing! |
"Astarion, please," Quinn dared to shrink the gap made during the vampire’s gesture, Astarion so disgusted to see actual fucking regret in the Tiefling’s gaze. "if I shoved my boot in my face by saying you could feed from one of us to sate your hunger, then you have every right to educate me properly on the subject." |
"What I want to do is stab you in the heart and let you roll down this damn hill!" |
"Have at it, dove," they spread their arms, lacking their usual carefree smile that came with such invitations, bloodthirsty or no. "Karlach has already promised a nice pretty grave after promising to take on Wyll’s patron by myself." |
Astarion scoffed. "I would be surprised if that brute the difference between a proper tomb and a rock by the wayside. Don’t go worrying your head about it, darling. You’re ignorant," he scowled balefully, Quinn’s brows smoothing a little in the middle, where small, troubled hills marred their otherwise unmarked plain. ... |
"No one but myself." What? "It’s as I said, I hold no hope that the others would agree, but if you were to donate what I can Shadowheart and a night’s rest should be more then enough to make up for the loss. After all, given my persuasion no one can say I’m not used to the feeling." |
There was that damned grin of their’s. "Sorry, tell me if I missed something, darling, but don’t all of your fancy capabilities as a Hunter depend on you having blood to give?" They were a rare sort, few and far in between it was said, for a monster killer to go so far as to harm themselves each and every time they nee... |
No, ever since they had met face to face, Quinn had surprised him with nearly every turn. The rich voice, the eager desire to fill the void with something approaching amusing, that...incessant circumstance of them always ending up at Astarion’s side as they prowled the wilderness, searching for traps, sustenance, and s... |
The second time Astarion had smelled their blood had been in the hull of the flaming ship, the vampire drawn there as he caught the delicious aroma in the air and followed it like a moth to certain death. And there they had been, riddled with their own crimson, striking down one of those disgusting brain mutations as i... |
Quinntav’s attention had snapped to where he was hiding like a hawk after a mouse. Astarion had shivered from that gaze, feeling at once afraid, and yet too weakened by desire to flee. |
The vampire knew better. He had seen Quinntav first hand in a proper fight after a night of rest and healthy nutrition: they were fast, thrice deadlier then the blades they carried, and eager as a vice to spill some red given any chance. And yet, and yet. |
They sought Astarion’s face under the broken shadows of the crown-shy trees above, and all the vampire could read was something akin to concern. Caring. So alien an expression that Astarion, only then, was aware of how much he had calmed during their short exchange. |
What was wrong with him? |
"Astarion, and tell me if I’m going too far again. But I would like to think that we could be friends someday. Cohorts, perhaps? And as acting close acquaintances in crime I want, more then anything, to ensure that you are comfortable." |
"Comfortable"? Are you being serious?" He could have laughed if he were capable. |
"I know, far away as we are from any "true marks of civilization", so to speak," Quinntav lifted a hand to the surrounding atmosphere, the other on one hip of their’s, their blades tucked neatly together and crossed on the small of their back. Astarion recognized his own comment, but remained as outwardly unmoved as he... |
Astarion exhaled, palming his face, trying to think for a moment. "This is madness." He had never. Never once in all of his years, had he tasted the lifeblood of another. Not for want of desiring it, no. But Cazador would have sensed it. Would have tracked down whatever soul he hadn’t finished off, if not before skinni... |
"Is this your polite way of turning me down, or-?" |
"Fine." He dropped his hand, seeing Quinntav’s lifted shoulders and actually thinking it read as excitement. "If you are truly so eager as to play the part of a willing victim, then far be it for me to deprive you of yet another sickened desire of yours." |
Astarion half hoped that such wording would upset the Tiefling, but instead they were all teeth: "Should I pretend to be scared? Does it help? Oh, oh no!" Their claws went up. "Oh, no, you terrible vampire," they clutched at their arms, "Don’t eat me! I have so much to live for! Think of my poor child!" |
"Don’t make me regret this," Astarion muttered, hating the amusement in his gut, just as his gaze swept to the marked lines on the hunter’s neck. They were noticeably paler then the remainder of their skin, slight scars existing as a result to their strange means of doing onto others harm, while harming themself. Astar... |
It was easy to simply be there, directly before them, to reach out and touch their hips, to wait for their mind to change and for them to twitch away. Yet. "Where should I put my hands." |
"Anywhere, I don’t know." |
"First time," Quinntav chuckled, their palms finding his sides. The question combined with the touch turned him into marble. "Astarion-?" |
"You talk too much," the vampire muttered, leaning in, forced to bend up, just enough for it to be...rather appealing, actually. Their breath ghosted across his own skin, warm, laughing. |
"Do you not like to listen, then?" |
"The sounds you make, sometimes," Astarion touched his lip buds to the column of throat, the texture of soft scar tissue noticeable and making his tongue eager to dart out to feel for itself. He resisted, if just barely. "They are maddening." |
As close as he was, he was certainly taking his time. And then he wasn’t, and Astarion found his fangs sinking deep into the plush, gentle give of his companion’s throat. |
There was a noise. An exhale of surprise, barely strained. The hands on his waist tightened, but Astarion was suffocated by the aroma in his senses, drowning out all reasonable thought, stupefying and heightening his awareness all at once. |
He drank, groaning with the flavor. Finally, finally. And gods, it was exquisite. He felt himself harden, but this was nothing like the relief that sex sometimes brought. It went straight to a desire nearly divine in it’s existence, more perfect and extraordinary then anything he ever dared believe in. |
And there it was, on the edge of his blind subconscious. That tentative bond that tossed them all together begin with, snapping closed around their own. Astarion felt Quinntav physically, but also mentally, the bond suddenly drawn tight as a noose. And with it came every bit of awareness for their own desire. |
Where it began with him and ended with them, he did not know. He did not look for it. Astarion merely drank, and he was happy. |
It was raining outside. |
Since destroying the Hag Ethel it had yet to stop, stranding the small part of unlikely heroes in the abode of the very witch that once haunter it’s walls. All of her remains were behind: her cracked coffee cups and hanging herbs, her fraying rugs and shawls, the slip of her blood on the dark floor boards, leading to t... |
Quinn had given the building a thorough look over, using their hemocraft to sense for any lingering witchcraft in the location, while Shadowheart reached for any touches of lingering evil. They were all over the place, but any glyphs or wards were burned away, not a one of their member feeling the same watchful eyes th... |
"I hate this place," Quinn could hear Karlach muttering by the sputtering hearth. All of them felt better with it lit, after those trapped within, those that could be saved anyway, left in a dead hurry to leave the place far behind. Storm nor sun could force those dread prisoners to remain a second longer there in thei... |
"There, there, mighty warrior. It should take more then a cursed gran’s abandoned hovel to scare you so." |
"You feel it, too, don’t you? She’s not here, but she’s here. She’s not watching, but it’s as if she couldn’t leave if she died. If she died. Even Q is silent up there..." |
Quinn supposed she was right. Since the rain had started they had found themself staring out the glassless window of the third landing, just beside an outdoor patio. On the table there Quinn could spy the arched tongue of a toad themed pot, adorable despite the strange, black stains leaking from it’s spout. They themse... |
"They are right, you know," Astarion’s voice floated to them, the vampire dropping from his perch on the lip of a higher landing, skillfully falling to his feet with a cat’s grace. "I can’t seem to recall the last time you sang a ditty lewd enough to curl even my bloodless toes. Was it the hag," he asked, sitting down ... |
He was right, of course. The Hag should have terrified them. She did everyone else. Anyone who knew a lick about Hags knew they were never to be trifled with, by way of promises or insult. Which was worse, who could tell, but they had done away with her for the moment. |
"It’s this place," Quinn confessed, one leg crossed over the other, their chin resting in their hand, their eyes glancing to their companion at last, and finding some comfort in taking him in at least. "The rain, the rotting wood, the smells they bring together. It reminds me of something." |
Astarion frowned faintly, not in distaste or displeasure, but question. "I thought you couldn’t recall anything about your past." A statement, a clear fact. Quinn had informed the others some time ago that although they were a member of the Circus of the End, before that part of their life they had very little to share... |
"There are some things. Snatches, from when I was a "wee Tief", I suppose one would say," Quinn tried to smile, but they weren’t feeling it. "I can’t say how small. Ten, at most. Snatches of...flower fields and hunger. I think maybe I lived in the country but something...ravished the place I lived in. One moment golden... |
"And...the rain reminds you of this?" |
Quinn liked to think they had grown close to Astarion. Not only because of the sharing of blood, though that was an aspect of their relationship shared with no one else. It lent a certain trust from the vampire, or, perhaps, a willingness to put up their rambling when they were unable to sing, to dance, to partake in r... |
"In the streets of the city I found a cupboard to hide in. Barely anything, really, but it had some wood, enough to keep my head dry for a time. When the rain came it would slick the cobblestones, run as rivers through their cracks and the spaces between my toes," Quinn replied, huffing in faint laughter. Maybe the poe... |
"This was Balder’s Gate? How long ago, if you had to guess?" |
"Oh, maybe...twenty years? Twenty five? I’m unsure of the time frame, given what I am missing," Quinn leaned back in their chair, palms on the table, scars glittering in criss crossing lines across their skin. "Then one day I wake up from a fever, bloodied black and blue, and Zara is there, tending to my wounds." |
"The Mummy," Quinn smirked a bit at his skepticism. "Look, if there’s anyone who knows how to dress a wound it’s someone falling apart by the seams, trust me, dove." |
"I’ll be sure to take your word for it, my dear," Astarion replied dryly. "But no wonder you’ve been so quiet, that’s absolutely dismal." |
Quinn cackled at that. Anyone else and it would have been "poor you" or some awkward silence at best. Astarion was honest, and it was refreshing. "Alright, fine, I’ll play some nonsense," Quinn declared, standing at last. |
"Oh, good! And here I thought I was going to have to ask more about your tragic back story to see you grinning like a fool again." |
Quinn snickered at the vampire. "Try swooning a bit next time," they said, pressing a hand to their sternum, "you should know your dramatics always make me warm in the chest." |
Astarion rose a fine brow: "Only in the chest?" |
"Charmer," Quinn picked up the violin leaning against the tree at the center of the hut, hearing Astarion, ever the man for the last word, say near to them: "I do more then charm, darling." |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.