The Vampire's Fairytale

Absolution

The scene from earlier plays over and over in his mind.

"You don't know anything about me, Astarion! So just leave it be." Sera, sweet, kind, gentle, patient Serafina, had yelled at him. Not once since they'd met on that beach had their erstwhile leader even raised her voice slightly at him. And today she shouted at him. All because she couldn't read Elvish and he'd reacted with the same humor she'd claimed to enjoy. Turning it on him as though he'd been the one in the wrong.

They'd been seated around the fire while Wyll took his turn "cooking", going through some papers and books they'd found in the wake of a goblin attack. They were looking for any clues into the cult's movements or plans. Sera had plucked a small, neatly bound journal from the pile and turned it over in her hands. It was a thing clearly well-made and cared for. She'd opened it gently, respectful of the fine binding holding it all together.

Her brilliant blue eyes had scanned a few pages before she gave out a frustrated sigh. "Elvish," she muttered, snapping it shut violently and thrusting it at Astarion. "You'll probably have better luck with that."

He wasn't sure why he did it. The half-elf's reaction was disproportionate to simply encountering a foreign language, that was obvious. Maybe it was because he'd become too used to teasing her since they'd started their "relationship." Their easy back and forth banter giving him the foreign feeling of acceptance.

Or maybe it was his own way of trying to deny those irritatingly tender feelings that had started to creep in whenever he caught her glancing his way or their hands touched, or she laughed at one of his jokes. The need to push back against them, sharpening his tongue and drawing out ancient bias.

Whatever caused it, he should've thought before opening his mouth. "Can't read Espruar? Someone got forgotten by one parent. Is that why you threw a tantrum and ran-"

"Shut up!" Sera leapt up from the log she'd been seated on and glared at him. "You don't know anything about me, Astarion! So just leave it be."

With that, she'd stormed off and left him silently stunned, as though awaiting a reprisal that didn't come. Around him, their companions pretended to look away and he caught a few whispers on the air. "What are you all looking at? It's not my fault she suddenly can't take a joke."

He'd sulked off to his own tent, waiting until her tantrum had passed and everyone forgot his misstep. He'd assumed Sera would cool down and come out for dinner, but instead she'd remained stubbornly locked away. Karlach had brought her a bowl of what they were generously calling stew.

Everyone had eaten and retired for the evening and she was still pouting. Which brought him to now, slinking his way across camp toward her tent. He had to do something, he couldn't watch his hard won protection slip away. It absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that Sera gave him a little kiss and wished him goodnight every other night lately and it had been noticeably withheld tonight.

The way the moonlight filtered through the trees, one solid beam pointing down on her tent, a poet might say that Selune was guiding him. Poets were idiots. Parting the flap just the smallest amount, he starts to slip inside, intent on waking her to settle things if he needed to, when a sound stopped him. A strangled cry, was it directed at him? He froze, half inside, the errant moonbeam that slipped around him haloing her with soft illumination.

Another wordless cry. Only a nightmare, nothing to be concerned with. Stepping in, he lets the tent shut, plunging them both back into darkness. With a predator's stealth, he approaches her bedroll, kneeling down, eyes subconsciously glancing at the healing puncture wounds on her neck.

"Let me out." Her sudden words startle him.

Stumbling backwards, he nearly loses his balance to go sprawling across the floor. His skin suddenly heated, as though the breath that carried those words could burn him.