faderift | [OPEN] Young Blood, say you want me out of your life

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[OPEN] Young Blood, say you want me out of your life

WHO: Astarion and, gasp, maybe you
WHAT: catch-all for Kirkwall mayhem involving a certain vampire
WHEN: ~whenever~ pick your poison
WHERE: Gallows, Kirkwall proper, anywhere you want
NOTES: 1 intolerable vampire pretending he doesn't give a damn

I: CHARITY

He keeps odd hours, that’s the nature of being a nocturnal monster designed to feed on the blood of his prey— or, well, former monster, as luck would have it. He certainly isn’t turning to ash each time the sun rises, and he isn’t burning to death every time he sinks into a nice, hot, afternoon bath. Food, even, that’s a new luxury too, though he isn’t entirely fond of what the Gallows serves on the regular: his taste runs a touch finer, as a habit— which might be why one passing trip through the market sees an arm slung sweetly around your own for a cheerful bout of unprompted conversation at Astarion’s mercy.

It’s quick, takes barely more than a few moments of lingering closeness, and then—

And then nothing. He’s gone as quickly as he came. Wait— do your pockets feel noticeably lighter?

Pursuit would only find him sometime later, slung casually across a table in some smoky little hole in the wall: drinking a glass of vivid red, eating a very lovely meal and chatting up someone with cheekbones so sharp they could open envelopes via proximity alone.

And he probably paid for all of it with your coin. Oh dear.

II: VICE CITY

“Aha, no, wrong again, darling— that win belongs to me.”

He’s learned the rules quickly. He’s learned everything, quickly, in fact, winking slyly as he rakes a meager mess of coins and knickknacks across the table towards him. Hardly a vivid sum, but enough that the brute opposite to him growls something unintelligible— veering away as the chair they’d been occupying topples right to the floor, the noise of it snapping right through an otherwise pleasant scene.

“Well.” Astarion scoffs, silvered brows raising. “Talk about a sore loser.”

He’d only cheated a little, besides. Still, red eyes snap to, the edges of his lips curling into an easy smile, gesturing with slender fingers towards the now-emptied seat across.

“Your turn, dearest.”

III: A VAMPIRE STILL

He haunts dark spaces in later hours. Bright eyes in shadow, attentive without exhaustion. The Gallows is bustling in daylight, and near silent without, and he prowls like a cat in the gaps between lanterns, searching for something nameless and shapeless.

Perhaps out of sight until the very last, unsettling second when pale features seem to cut through pitch-soaked corners.

Try not to shriek, if you stumble into his path, won’t you? It is late, after all, and he doesn't fancy a headache.

IV: WILDCARD

[ooc: pick your poison, swap one of the prompts around, opt for daylight and cheerful drinking— the sky's the limit. Astarion can even be caught doing a little studious reading in closed-off spaces, though don't expect him to take kindly to being noticed.

Also I'll match tagging format to whatever suits you, and/or hit me up if you want something else plotwise entirely!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Nor did I." If it bothers him, the metallic glint of a poised threat in the moonlight, he certainly isn't showing it: lips curling by degrees into recognition, beat by passing beat.

So this is what you look like.

"A pleasure at last, Ellie."

There is an animal response in the hindbrain of all humans, but when it comes to people whose survival instincts have been fine-tuned for the span of a lifetime, it's strong. It's far from the first time Ellie's instincts have screamed predator, and it won't be the last.

The ripple of adrenaline is instant and hot, enlarging her pupils in the darkness, and her fingers squeeze down on the handle of the well-used switchblade. Her instinct is clearly fight rather than flight. But she's ahead of it, and doesn't follow through. As she recognizes his voice, she eases her hand back.

"Astarion," she answers, blowing out a breath, and folds the switchblade back into place with a practiced flip of her wrist. "You scared the shit out of me."

She sounds more exasperated than angry or afraid.

It's a low chuckle, throaty and easy, that sees him finally reaching up to tug at the edge of one ruffled cuff once she tucks away that blade of hers— certain he won't be skewered for the gesture, now. After all, he isn't in any rush to test out what might be the death of him here, now that sunlight and water are off the table. "You'll have to forgive me, of course. I'm not used to entertaining in the dead of night, when everyone else is usually fast asleep. It makes for poor etiquette, I know."

"Still, it does beg the question of why you're skulking around in the dark."

Christ, he really does fit the bill. Ellie looks him up and down, swallowing the urge to whistle under her breath because damn that is an aesthetic.

Ellie herself is thoroughly unremarkable, with somewhat mismatched clothes, the lanky, wiry build of someone who's spent a lot more time fighting than getting adequate food, countless scars and freckles that show up even in the moonlight. A sleeve tattoo on her right arm comes all the way down to her wrist. Old ink, two ferns wrapping themselves over what's probably a long-healed acid burn.

She lifts what looks like a wooden and leather case in her left hand to show him. It's heavy enough to knock someone out with, surely.

"Telescope," she answers, then tilts her head at him. "Got my hands on a star chart, finally, and the cloud cover's let up."

"Stargazing?"

It's little more than a scoff of a word, one brow cocking in visible confusion as his eyes settle down across what she carries in her arms. He'd expected something daring, if he's honest. A little danger, a little espionage, perhaps.

This is—

Well it's utterly mundane, isn't it?

"It's not stargazing," Ellie scoffs back, offended, though that's... yeah, that's what it is, actually.

"I used to know all kinds of shit about the solar system back home and I had it all mapped out and everything. But then I came here, and-"

Ellie waves her hand out the stone windowsill, personally offended by the fact that there are two moons and all the rest.

"It's not my fault that Thedas isn't just in a different reality, they're whole different fucking galaxy."

“Ahah, I take it your world doesn’t have realms layered atop one another like stacked books.”

He follows her gaze, one hand finding his hip with a gentle, relaxed weight. At so late an hour, there isn’t much to get up to that isn’t either studious or distilled trouble— and he can’t go making too much noise about town each and every night unless he wants to make himself marked. Which...no. No thank you. There’s a difference between being a notoriously lucky gambler and a filthy cheat.

“Well, all right then. Let’s get to it. Lead the way, my dear.”

Astarion, she didn’t invite you.

"Nah, but there was some kinda game back home that talked about that. Never really got into it."

Ellie shrugs, but lifts her eyebrows at Astarion, despite the look in her eyes saying she really isn't surprised; she's been around her fair share of cats, and he kinda seems like an overgrown one. He'll follow her until she's not doing anything interesting, she bets.

She can't say she completely minds the company.

"Do you call everyone by pet names?" she asks, leading the way, heading up the stone staircase. They've got quite a few flights to climb to get to the top of the lookout tower. If she has any reservations about being alone with a vampire, she doesn't show it.

“Why of course. I find it does a great deal to lower defenses and inspire a sense of familiarity—”

Footsteps relaxed and steady, silent as the air around them, and for that he does indeed seem the very picture of a cat trotting along in her shadow.

Long lashes lid red eyes, his voice made all the sweeter when he adds, feather-light:

“Or ire.”

"D'awww, look at you, giving me all your secrets," Ellie says just as lightly, mimicking his tone. She's enjoying herself, where she didn't actually think she would.

"I mean, I bet it works. Getting everybody to feel some type of way about you."

Ellie's voice mellows out into something a little more thoughtful.

“You’d be an old woman if I told you all my secrets.” He says slyly, offering a sort of winking gesture by way of flicking his own peripheral stare at a steep angle.

“But a little friendly help here and there can’t hurt. We are allies now, after all.”

Edited 2021-06-06 22:02 (UTC)

"Probably." Ellie shrugs, but glances back down at him, hefting up the case to put the weight on her shoulder instead. It's starting to tug on her less-bad arm.

"Yeah? You find out which division you wanted?"

“Scouting. The most desperately in need of my services, by way of popular vote.”

It’s spoken easily, his parted fingertips lifting dramatically before tumbling like rain: a sort of visual representation of disastrous standing.

In reality, he’s masking the fact that he actually went with the more responsible choice for once.

Ellie rolls her eyes upward.

"That, or somebody wants to piss off the leadership," she jokes, not bothering to hide her smile. She's new to Scouting herself, enough that she doesn't feel any need to defend it.

"You could be onto something there, though. Do you fight or anything? If you don't, they pair us up with muscle."

“Well that depends: how fetching is that assigned muscle, generally speaking?” He's tugging absently at one of the silver curls tucked against the back of his neck, just clinging to the edge of that high collar, attention fancifully distant.

“Because if it’s quality we’re talking about, I might just be inclined to lie.”

Edited 2021-06-09 21:51 (UTC)

Ellie gives a hum of thought, seriously entertaining the question even as she rolls her eyes. She's already coming to accept that this is just the way Astarion is.

"Depends on which way you swing, and what your type is," she says, in total honesty. "And whether you get a mage or a somebody from Forces."

... because the mages are categorically hotter, from Ellie's perspective.

Don't lie, Ellie. You're enjoying yourself.

And to be fair, so is he.

"Every way. Any way, in fact." He doesn't need clarification to understand what she means; some sayings transcend all cultural differences, particularly with context in play. "What can I say? I've an avaricious heart."

"But thank you, this insight has been most helpful." Guess who's going to say he can't so much as lift a finger for his own delicate nature? Go on, guess.

"What about you? Do you dabble in sword play? Magic, perhaps?"

"Oh yeah, your heart."

... maybe a little.

Ellie makes a noise under her breath that might've been a huff, might've been a laugh, and keeps on climbing the stairs. The air's getting cooler up here, smells like salt, and the wind is loud. She's glad she's not sensitive to heights.

"Nah, no swords, but I've got a bow and some knives I'm good with." Ellie lifts her hand with the green shard in the palm, indicating her Rifter status. "And this glowy son of a bitch, I guess."

As for magic... "I can do a couple of things that I guess you could call magic. But not like an actual mage or anything."

Here, he moves ahead of her. Not for impatience or weariness or anything of the like: he's a menace, yes, and a villain, but he still has decency to know at the end of this stairwell is a doorway— and he is a gentleman, after all.

His palm catches the latch easily, pressing it aside with a sort of nodding half-bow. After you, Ellie.

"Such as? Regale me. I'm terribly fascinated."

Ellie pauses as Astarion sweeps by her, confused at first before she puts together what he's doing. It's been a long time since someone opened a door for her, and it gives her a pang, deep in her chest. Few people cared about stuff like this, back home, but the ones that did...

It makes her miss them all, and maybe it shows, just a flicker of something in her eyes, some old pain and long memory she can't shake.

After you, little lady.

But then her expression flickers, and she looks back up at Astarion's face, openly casting her eyes heavenward, up at the stars as she walks through the door, puts down the case and starts unloading the components of the telescope. It's rather nice, and she treats it with care. She should; it's not technically hers.

"You're a nosy shit, you mean," Ellie says without heat, but screws in the first pieces by the star and double moonlight.

"Well, you didn't see me when we almost ran into each other down below, did you? But you saw the blue glow?"

“What, I’m not allowed to take a healthy interest in my allies?” All mock-offense, following after her with a fluid gate to rest himself directly in front of where she works: one arm slung across stonework, the other pressed to his own collarbone purely for show.

And then set aside once he smiles.

“I did indeed. A strange form of stealth if ever I’ve seen it put in play.”

"Someone squealed, huh?" she mutters, giving her head a little shake as she tightens up the pieces, ensuring a stable mount. Then again, it's not hard to find out which group Ellie's a part of. And maybe she's a small bit pleased. She knows a few of the people she'll work with, but scouting often works alone, or with partners from other areas.

"Yeah. I've got more than one type of glowy shit going on." She wriggles her hand to indicate the shard, then taps her chest, where he would've seen the blue glow.

"This one's blue. Lets me turn invisible. The gold-" Ellie reaches up to indicate her eyes. "That one I'm still figuring out. The anchor bullshit came with a lot of instructions, but the other stuff decided is more like a learn as you go experience."

She glances up. "What about you? Can you turn into a bat?"

“You seemed a little in the know about the ins and outs of the routine, my dear.” Pride thrives in his lopsided grin, flashing a few pale sharp edges for the promise of a correct estimate confirmed— only dropped by a noticeable measure when she opts to chase his inquiries with her own.

A bat. Of course. Is it never enough anymore to simply have sharp teeth? Immortality? No, it’s always mist, wolves, flocks of bats, covens—

“Only when I feel like it.”

Liar.

Ellie notices the change in his smile when his answers, and pauses with her fiddling, giving him a thoughtful look.

"We don't have to get into it if you don't wanna."

The focus means she's perceptive. Good, in a way: considering her talents and chosen Division, she ought to be. On the other hand, however, she's focusing that attention on him, and seeing a little more in the moment than he'd care to divulge.

Also, he's just lied, so there's that.

He shakes his head, mouth curving easily as his eyes slip shut, leaning into the promise that she's spotted something, rather than denying it. Just...not the right thing.

"I’d just appreciate the promise of a little discretion when discussing the finer details of being an inhuman, bloodsucking monster. Most people here don’t seem to be in the know, so I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been a touch careless in chatting about it, but..." He turns his fingers over nothing at all, the image of deliberate thought. "Torches and pitchforks aren’t really my style."

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