faderift | [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

"Cheesy?" He scoffs. He more than scoffs, he puffs, sputtering, when he says it— as though if he had feathers or fur to spare, it'd be ruffled high in showful irritation, punctuated by the angled curl of his lip across a fang.

"How dare you."

He doesn't even know what cheesy might be intended to mean in this context, but he knows enough to be offended.

...but then again, he'd be offended anyway. On principle.

"After all I've done for you. All I've shared."

Ellie looks back at him with wide eyes, buttons her lips together, and manages to look both younger and older than she is, her eyes dancing with restrained laughter.

Fuck, she does like him.

"Terribly sorry, old chum."

... she's going to say that in a horrible Ferelden accent.

He's still postured in poised offense, still pressing a lone hand against the center of his chest— and then it breaks, and he's fitting a sharper stare her way over the edges of his own beguiled grin.

"I'm going to throw you over the side of this tower, and no one's going to know that I was the villain responsible for your very untimely end."

"Oh no," Ellie says flatly, lolling her head to one side. "Please. Stop. Someone help."

Calmly, she presents both wrists for him, to give him an easy handle, apparently, for slinging her off the side of the tower.

She leans forward and loudly whispers.

"I'm gonna be such a shitty ghost."

He might feign weakness— at times he undoubtedly pales in comparison to those more used to constant combat in the wearying dark— but muscle is muscle, and beneath leather and frills, he has much, much more than one might expect: it's a very simple thing to take her offered wrists, hoist her directly over his shoulder, and lean ever so slightly back over the tower parapets.

"I have a feeling you'll do just fine."

Edited 2021-07-19 00:02 (UTC)

Feint or not, Ellie isn't expecting to be hoisted, and she's even lighter than she looks. All sharp edges and wiry muscle, and he's treated to her eyes going wide before she has to fight the reflex to drive a knee as deep into his solar plexus as she can.

Instead Ellie lets out a high noise and claws both hands into the clothes at the small of his back, rumpling them, and jams her leg against his shoulder, holding on with strength that is, quite suddenly, very superhuman.

"I'm taking you with me," she sputters, caught between breathless offense and half-hysterical laughter. Nobody's dared do anything like this to her in years.

"I'm a vampire my darling girl," It's snorted out between the most malicious bout of breathy laughter imaginable, light and lilting, his heels dug in so that they don't actually go right across the edge into the figurative— or perhaps literal— abyss. "As you said, I'll just turn into a bat and flutter away."

He moves to lift his hand to make a sort of fluttering gesture—

And the shift in balance has him immediately relenting, grabbing hold of her middle once more.

Right. Too much.

"You turning into a fluffy baseball doesn't mean I can't just snatch you right out of the- fuck!!" Ellie yelps as they nearly go over, deplorably wrinkling the back of his outfit, and jamming her knee into his ribs accidentally-on-purpose.

"Okay, okay, uncle. Uncle. Chrissake, you're gonna actually drop us."

“Ah— hah— ” He coughs when that knee meets his ribs, doubling forwards, away from the lip of the parapet— almost hurling her to the stony floor, though he catches the both of them at the last possible moment, adjusting so that only her heels touch it instead.

“Gods, keep that nonsense up and you’d have made me drop you.”

He pulls back, dusting himself off with fussing care that quickly turns to rubbing that now tender spot where her knee had settled against his side.

Ellie tenses for the fall; the way she holds herself makes it clear she both expects to be thrown and knows how to catch herself to avoid serious injury. It surprises her more that he has the control not to do it. She slowly presses her feet to the stone, and it takes a second more for her to release his clothes.

"That's usually the idea," she admits, dusting off the shoulder of his shirt, like she can repair the wrinkles from her fingers.

"If you get grabbed back where I'm from, you gotta make yourself a problem to hold onto."

Once it's apparent she's helping rather than attempting to strike at him for his own mischief, he stoops lower by a few inches to make the matter all the more simple for her: head tilted just to one side so her hands have an easier time dusting away.

Thank you.

"Not so very different from where I'm from, in all fairness." Not that Astarion has any complaints about being kidnapped twice now, technically speaking.

"That said, I like you a touch too much to drop you."

A pause lingers for a beat longer before he adds, slyly, "Though that could always change."

"I'll take your word for it. You seem like you'd be a bitch to pick up."

Ellie flashes a smile at him in the darkness, which only widens as he admits to liking her -- and still more at the amendment.

"Then I'll make sure I stay on your good side. At least as long as we have a giant fucking tower around for you to throw me off of."

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

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