And there she stood, that freak of a bard who somehow had become this ragtag group’s leader, her honey-blonde hair that reached her hips sopping wet, dripping on the floor of his tent. One foot in, one foot still outside, she hesitated at the sight of him. He couldn’t blame her, of course. It was not an opportune moment for her to catch him with his hand around his cock.
How many times had Astarion done this, to himself, voluntarily? He could have counted it on the fingers of one hand. It surely had to have something to do with the events of that night: his first time, first time in two hundred years, tasting the blood of a thinking creature. Her blood.
The Three-Heart Mouse, she called herself. Ridiculous. That was par for the course, though, as far as bards went. Astarion felt inclined to not think of her in such petty terms, all of the sudden. She had done him a great favor, after all.
“I couldn’t sleep… Woozy,” she mumbled in that clipped way of hers. A different creature might have struggled to hear her. She didn’t look ashamed, didn’t try to turn her face away; didn’t even so much as blush. But there was a barely noticeable darkening of her eyes.
They just stared at each other for way too long. Her blinking at him, small mouth rounded as if stuck on a forgotten syllable. Him blinking back at her, desire not entirely cooled down, fresh blood coursing through his veins.
She disturbed the others with her too-intense stares in contrast to her disproportionately indifferent tone, her toothy grins at inappropriate moments, he knew. Her movements, like a puppet, way too flexible; as if she was dancing around the world, one skip at a time. But Astarion knew now, she was fragile too- she could bleed.
And she was delicious.
It was the self-appointed mouse that broke the awkward silence, pressing on each word as if making sure the ground underneath is stable enough to carry their weight as she said:
“I can help you with that.”
