#ladysunbite

[fallesto]

"Would you still love me, if I was a...no, I really should not ask it." that drinking game was ridiculous, rigged, and a drink clearly laced, yet it was a rude notion to voice. Especially when the point of it all was to kill the choking cloud of boredom, while they waited for the fresh horses inside the bowels of some rot-consumed hut of an inn. The liquid they were served could be hardly called wine. Mayhapse, it being laced was a gallant gesture from Olgierd's part. At least now it smelled passable.

"...a human?"

// from Orianna

What an odd question? As he stood there and looked at her, Orianna, the vampire, lounging against the splintered inn table with a goblet tilted lazily between her fingers. The candlelight flickered across her pale throat, catching the faintest shimmer of old blood dried at the corner of her lip. She was laughing at something one of the thugs had said, but her eyes—sharp as a honed dagger were fixed on him. There was no warmth in that gaze, only the cold amusement of a predator watching prey stumble into a snare.

He could still taste the bitterness of the laced wine on his tongue, metallic and thick, like swallowing a coin. His fingers twitched toward the hilt of his saber, a old habit—but he forced them still. A show of unease would only entertain her further. Instead, he leaned against the wall, feigning indifference. "You’ve a peculiar idea of hospitality." He drawled.

“Scum, filth, the worst of the worst, good pick as always.”

As he exhaled through his nose, a quiet, weary sound. The truth of it prickled beneath his skin: if she were human, she wouldn’t be sitting here with him now. She wouldn’t have that knife’s-edge smirk, the unblinking stare of something that had seen empires rise and crumble. She wouldn’t be interesting. And that, more than the venom humming in his veins, was what gnawed at him. If she was human, then they would have never crossed paths, as he looked down for the moment.

“Humanity …” As he opened his hand, twitching his fingers, the one thing he had and the one thing he had taken for granted, the one thing he had pissed away on his chase for power, riches and wishes. The one thing that made him who he was, what he was, and he gave it all up. “Is a gift …” He said, as he closed his eyes, to feel, to taste, to just feel yourself within the moment, humanity, was enjoying the little things, the small things in life, that he had forgotten.

“I think, if fate had other ideas and if we were both human .. I think we could have been, very happy somewhere, in the countryside, a normal pointless little slice of life.”

[sapientiaethumanitas]

In Continuation of this ││ @ladysunbite

"I must trust you then, darling." Uneasiness spread to the old vampire as he took the valuable crystal glass from the hands of the beautiful redhead. "My humble personality never has and never will drink blood. I hope you respect that." Elegantly he held the glass at her to toast. "I have not yet thanked you for inviting me to your modest home. The view is incomparable.” 

Slowly he led the glass to his lips without turning from Orianna's gaze. When the first drop touched his lips, his nose perceived the incomparable aroma of Est Est, all the tension in his body was lost. 

In fact, this delicious drop reminded him of his homeland. The aroma - like the grasses that grew on the surface of their world and that he had eaten as a young boy. That was a long time ago, but this wine put him back there.

“Why do you think humans often just kill each other? Out of revenge, out of lust, for their fatherland? This is a question whose answer is stowed away in a golden box that remains closed to my mind. Treachery - also fascinating. I think that only humans are capable of it who have really been hurt in their deepest soul. No happy person is capable of such a thing."

"We, on the other hand, sometimes have no choice but to kill our own kind. Emiel was not far from suffering the same fate as my blood brother. I'm sure you know the story..."

[fallesto]

"Tell me more about this fabled wolf," there was no woman at his side, just a voice, gliding through the trees. The sun-eyed vampiress upheld a pleasant conversation, but did not hurry to appear before the eyes. "What does it prefer - hapless maidens and children, strong warriors, rich loot?"

// from Orianna (@ladysunbite), the wolf hunt thread.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” As he mused for the moment, as he continued to walk forward, not even his sword within his hand, as he allowed his blades to rest upon his back, and his waist as well as he continued on his casual pace, hands even going to the back of his head, as he would casually whistle a joyful tune for himself.

“I heard stories, that it has not only been seen near your estate, but within it as well, makes me believe that you own it, and because you have been gone for so long, it has tired and sought out game for itself.” 

[fallesto]

"It is not a question of loving or not. I had no idea that the goose was anything but a morsel on a plate. Moreover, that the ring inside was binding."

// the ridiculous fun of a goose, regulus and a ring

The cage bars felt colder than they should have, cold enough that even the soft down of his form couldn't fully insulate him. The storeroom smelled of damp wood and old grain sacks, stacked haphazardly against the walls. Moonlight seeped through a single high window, casting slatted shadows across his prison. He ruffled his feathers, the motion sending a ripple of irritation through him. How dare they? How dare they confine him like some common livestock? His beak clicked against the iron latch, testing it with a violence that would have shattered human fingers. But the lock held.

"Let me out!"

Outside, the estate slept. No guards lingered near the storeroom; whoever had purchased him must have thought a simple latch sufficient for a bird. A mistake. He had slaughtered men for lesser assumptions. His golden eyes—still murky, still disinterested—scanned the room again. There had to be a way. He couldn't remain here. The indignity of it burned hotter than any fire, hotter even than Reinhard's final strike. He was Regulus Corneas. Divine. Eternal. Not some… poultry.

The first sliver of dawn crept through the high window, painting the straw-strewn floor in pale gold. He hissed—or tried to; the sound came out as a guttural honk that made his own feathers bristle in humiliation. Outside, the estate stirred to life with a clatter of pots and the brisk footsteps of servants. Laughter, bright and careless, filtered through the walls. Someone was singing off-key. A celebration. The realization settled over him like a noose. They would feast while he languished in this filth. His wings twitched with the urge to rend flesh, but the cage held firm.

"LET ME OUT!"

He craned his neck, an unnatural motion for a goose, yet his body obeyed with eerie precision—and stared at the plump, snow-white feathers covering his breast. The down was pristine, almost radiant in the thin morning light. A chef’s dream. A roasting pan’s dream. His stomach lurched, not with hunger, but with something far worse: the dawning, grotesque realization that he was market-ready.

@ladysunbite

[fallesto]

"How do you find immortality, master von Everec?" the voice of the woman is silken and subtle. Not at all like her perfume of bitter herbs and over-sweet spices. The scent hangs around oppressively, numbing the thoughts. Even horses seem to be affected and swiftly fall into a lazy step, side by side.

"Forgive my curiousity. Even a man of business is not aghast to a small talk, I suppose? And our way to Novigrad is not neither dangerous or picturesque. At least for now… " // to Olgierd from Orianna (@ladysunbite)

THE DARK ARTS

They had always interested him. The dark arts was something he was always fascinated with. It was something that he felt a pull towards and it was something that he was good at as well. He was no mage that much was for sure. He could not just wag his finger and make water into wine nor could he send fire flying out of his fingers. It was the DARK ARTS that he was good at, a form of magic that was FORBIDDEN and not often use - for many obvious reasons. He used the dark arts himself, to make a man into a toad, to summon the man of glass and when that creature would no longer answer his summon - he used the DARK ARTS to summon other CREATURES from the darkness instead.

There was a great many things he could do - as he looked at the women he saw the thought sink in for a moment. What could he do to her - what could he give to her? It had been some time since he used the DARK ARTS and while nothing would happen to him while he did it - something ALWAYS happened to those around him. If she wanted to be HUMAN he could make it so - the COST would be HIGH - but that was someone else's problem, not there own.

“It is a FORM of MAGIC that has been FORGOTTEN that is all - I am no MAGE - just a man who has an INTEREST in things FORBIDDEN.”

He just stared ahead, wishing to AVOID the conversation that was laid down to him, for he was not FOOL. He knew what this was at his side, what she was. He could smell it on her, see it with his own eyes as well and know she was a TRUE immortal and not a FALSE immortal like himself, the differences between them and how, one seemed to be CONTENT with the extended life and the other, was regretting just what he had wished for, as he has achieved everything in such a short order, that he sought out new HIGHS to try and keep his interests alive.

“I sought out a MYTH, a RUMOR, a LEGEND - and I struck a BARGAIN with this creature. To gain what I wanted more than anything within the world, only know so long removed, do I see that it has COST me everything.”

[fallesto]

i’m really good with faces // from Orianna ( ladysunbite ) to any of your witcher muses, whenever you are in the mood 🦇

“Hm yes, it seems that you do have a talent for remembering peoples faces after countless years. I would bow before you as it is not every night a higher vampire makes an appearance before me, but I would rather have you lay down on the table and cut you open to see what rests inside of you, regardless, you have come a long way to find me, desperation? Perhaps, but my payment for my time is a high one and it only increases the longer you stand there, right now I wish for two of your orphans, depending on what is said, this may increase.”