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

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."

"Easy ask."

Ellie goes back to tightening and balancing the telescope, making sure it sits securely, though the inhuman bloodsucking monster part sticks out a bit. He's flippant as hell as he says it, but she's familiar with skating along over horrible shit without stumbling, throwing things out there to pretend that they don't hurt.

"If you could keep my glowy shit more or less under wraps too, that'd be cool. I guess some of the people here think it's awesome to keep mages in towers their whole lives so they don't snap and become demon-infested abominations, but the standards are relaxed right now 'cause of, y'know, the war."

Still slung against stone architecture, positioned just in front of the device she works to finish assembling, he eyes himself in the lens of the telescope; distantly fascinated by the fact that he has a reflection again. Unfamiliar maybe, but a reflection all the same.

His smile comes easy, his chin held high.

“Fear is a powerful motivator, as they say.”

And in Thedas, demons and darkspawn and even the Fade itself looms terribly large.

“But if you’re worried about how all those shivering little sheep will respond if they find out you’re a mage under the most unideal of circumstances, just remember that this makes us even: I won’t dare let them harm a single hair on your head. Or imprison them, for that matter— war or no war.”

Ellie shrugs; she can't exactly blame people for their fears. It's why she keeps secrets, holds them tight and close. There's things people will never understand and will never trust, and they're probably right not to, in a word with as much bullshit as hers. Or Thedas, in a different way.

She's seen some of these demons. They're not pretty.

Her fingers still pause at his promise, one of those moments where her throat goes tight. She likes him -- kinda hard not to, despite herself -- but she's not prepared that statement. It tugs at her, because he's speaking to parts of her that he has no way of knowing about, and that's precisely the problem.

"Never pegged you for a sap," she answers, looking up at his eyes, her expression wry, half a smile.

"Oh don't start." His lip curls, perched fingertips drawn up slightly in distaste. The way she looks at him from behind the span of her work, it's more unpleasant than he's keen on tolerating in the here and now, even with the addition of that wry little smile like some sort of mask for real, palpable sentiment.

"I don't love it when you make it difficult by saying things like that. Might even tempt me to take back my promise."

Ellie flashes a smile, straightens up, and aims a light punch at his upper arm before she turns back to the telescope, making a few last adjustments.

"So, anything in particular you wanna look at? We can even aim this thing across the harbor."

For spying purposes? Surely not.

Ow, he hisses between the grooves of sharp teeth, resentfully (and wholly performatively, considering it doesn’t hurt in the slightest) before her question distracts him with a vivid flare of unmistakably terrible interest, gathering himself up at her side like a shadow.

A very tall, pale shadow.

"How far out can you see with it? Into Hightown, perhaps?"

"Oh, please," she mutters, but bends over a little, pushing the eyepiece into place so he can easily grasp hold of it.

"And I dunno, you find out. You got someone in particular you're spying on?"

"Particular? Not yet."

He takes to that invitation like a duck to— well, water, of course: all too happy to steal first use of what she'd spent so long setting up for herself, peering through it with one eye closed to get his bearings in that first, initial pass.

"The night is young, after all. I've plenty of time to find a suitable target, and— you don't mind, do you? If I borrow this for a little while, I mean. Your stars aren't going anywhere till sunrise."

"For a while," Ellie concedes, grumpily, though she does make room for him to take a look through the lens. Nice to see him (presumably) genuinely excited about something that isn't getting into trouble.

Gross, when did she become responsible?

"But I have it on loan from somebody else, so don't go swiping it."

Sticking her hands into her pockets, she looks across the harbor at the lights of Hightown, the very distant murmur of the city life lost among the crash of the waves far below.

"What makes a good target, huh?"

“I’ll do my best not to fly off with it.”

A few twists of the knob, a little correction, and he’s honing in on tall buildings against a starry backdrop.

“First, look for anyone that’s awake at this hour.” said as he lifts his head for a brief moment, carefully studying the differences between what he sees within the eyepiece itself, and what lays sprawling before them. Head ducked back down a beat later, smiling faintly to himself as he hones in on an undrawn window, bright as the sun at midday in comparison to the architecture that surrounds it.

“Much like ourselves, few who stay up late are up to any amount of good.”

"You'd have to be a really big bat to carry this heavy fucker," Ellie mutters, following the eyeline of the scope to try to see what he's looking at.

She's got good distance vision, even if it's not up to what he'll be able to see, but everything across the harbor seems like darkness dotted with fireflies and vague shapes.

"... yeah, I can agree with that."

Looking back on her own youth, she was rarely up to anything within the rules when she broke curfew or snuck out. It was different now that she was an adult, but perhaps that was simply because there were fewer rules to break.

"Somehow I don't think they're doing anything too crazy over there. Just a bunch of weird affairs."

"Ahah, that, my dear, is quite the point." spoken as he leaves his focus wholly on whatever it is he's taking in, clearly committing himself to taking internal notes without pretense or poise— and then, after a moment or two, he pulls back with an easy smile, gesturing for her to take back the device as she likes.

"There's a kind of power in knowing who is consorting with whom, and at what hour. Better still if we ever need a favor, or an appeal, or a little local support."

He steps away, lounging instead across an abandoned crate, languid.

"But I've quite finished for now. Map all the spots you like."

Ellie wrinkles her nose at the idea, shaking her head.

"I'm gonna leave blackmailing the nobility to you, and stick with stabbing things," she says, half-joking, and reaches for the device-

But he'll notice that she takes a long moment to try to see what he was focusing the lens on, first.

"... but did you see anything good?"

"My dear girl, how utterly inappropriate of you, asking a gentleman to part with such information." said wickedly as he lifts his chin, watching her only peripherally as an index finger pins a single clasp between it and his thumb, judgmental in openly feigned measures.

"I'm not even certain I should be telling you something so scandalous."

Why yes, Ellie. He did find something good.

"Don't make me kick you," she threatens ineffectually from behind the eyepiece, wiggling it around somewhat to get it to focus on various lights, windows- and then on the darkness in between. Her eyes aren't quite as good as his.

Still nothing. Ellie lifts her head and gives him a look that says she knows that he wants to tell her.

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