Because in other franchises blood magic is actually pretty scary. Vlad, get your game right and stop making period jokes!
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It should have been harder, he thought, as she fell helplessly in his arms.
The people in his mind had kept whispering and he had learnt much from them, though not in that way. Never in that way. One of the older mages had told legends, stories about a certain type of magic. One which made him think too much about things that shouldn't happen.
Except they had and he hadn't planned for this obsession to go on for so long and he hadn't planned for this to happen.
His archnemesis of sorts, Shauna Vayne, was lying helpless in his arms, harmless under the effects of the blood magic spell his ancestor had whispered in his mind. It was the first time he had seen her so… soft and harmless and the sight was enthralling.
Her weapons lay discarded on the ground, her muscles relaxed and flax under his touch, and the tiniest drunk smile graced her features.
He smirked to himself; apparently the only time he ever got to see her smile was when she wasn't herself. Great woman, she was.
With a small huff he took her up on his shoulders and turned to his bedroom; she was light as a feather once you got rid of her crossbows and other vicious-evil-creature-killing kit. And tiny as well – he could hide her under his cape and walk around not arousing any suspicion. He supposed her height was good for hiding in the shadows. Everything about her helped her in her calling.
He wished his head helped him in his calling.
Now his head was fixated on the curve of her neck and the way it flowed into her shoulder as her head laid on his chest, and wondered what it'd be like to taste it. Not taste the blood under, but the skin, nip it, lick it, and bite it, gently, never enough to penetrate its texture, but just enough. Would it be a different taste to blood, or would it be just a weaker version of it? Or a stronger one?
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dmitrii was laughing his ass off.
Vladimir was very confused and vaguely annoyed, and majorly distracted.
With a kick he opened the door to his bedroom, where he gently laid her across his bed before settling down to sit next to her. Now he could have his fun? Wait, what fun? What to do with her?
He lowered himself to her, slowly as never, still unsure of what to do.
Her face came centimetres away from his face.
Wait, stop.
Unsure whether it was his inner voice or some memory of the previous blood mages, he stopped for a second. That give him enough time to take a deep breath and have a good look at her face. Her skin was naturally pale (running around and functioning mainly at night didn't help either), but now it was pallid. All blood had drained from her face, and though he knew it was there, a small bit of him felt… concern? For her.
His hand reached out almost out of its own volition and touched her cheek. He half hoped her skin felt like a normal human's. But then again, how could he know what a normal human's skin felt like, when the only skin he'd ever touched was the dead flesh of his victims?
The skin under his touch was soft, softer than he'd expected, kind of powdery (oh, she uses cosmetics?), but pasty and dead-feeling.
He withdrew his hand like her flesh had burned him.
It wasn't supposed to be like that. She was supposed to be bright and vibrant, and alive, burning in ways he never had, but not this. Not like this.
What does a normal human living's skin feel like?
Memories flooded him and he knew.
This wasn't right.
Not like this.
This wasn't right.
Finally, he moved away from above her and crashed next to her in his giant plush annoying bed, pinching the bridge of his nose
This wasn't right.
Even homicidal blood mages had to draw the line somewhere, and he chose not to violate a woman whose blood was under his total control.
True, she'd try to kill him once she awoke. But where was the fun now? With this lifeless body?
Her blood was singing to him, use me, use me, take me and make me dance to your every leisure. Please, please, please. Allow me this duet with you.
Too easy.
This was a doll. This wasn't her. He enjoyed having his fun with her. Not some hollowed out body that only looked like her. And he wanted her, with all her complications, and lust for justice and all the trying to kill him part.
Maybe he was a masochist.
Maybe the voices in his head were nobler than he was.
Noble?
Noble had no place in Noxus.
Maybe.
Except this wasn't Noxus and Vladimir wasn't the Vladimir he thought he was before. He was more, or maybe he was less, or maybe he was Dmitrii and every other blood mage before him, and he had lost himself to some of the souls he had ended before arriving at this place.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
With a barely audible sigh, he lifted the enchantment off her, and knowing she'd be unconscious at least an hour, he hauled her off to his lavish bedroom, where he lowered her on the bed and got the softest pillows he had and put them under her head with something the memories in his head described as gentleness. He hadn't had that in a while. Ever.
Another sigh escaped his lips and he climbed into the bed and settled at a safe distance from her, before returning to the book he had previously been reading, which he admitted was less interesting than the person next to him.
Anyway, duels are far more interesting than duets.
Many hours passed and he didn't bother counting them, instead preferring to watch her changing facial expressions and listen to her tiny grunts, all the while pretending to read. He knew that he wouldn't see her so peaceful when she was awake.
She didn't disappoint, of course.
The moment she opened her eyes, she had his wrists above his head, trapped in her hand, and her legs immobilizing his lower body. Vladimir tried not to think of steamy things that happened in such positions, of memories that weren't his.
Eyes he so rarely saw bored into his, staring into the abyss of his wretched soul. He hoped she saw something she liked.
Her vision was still unfocused and blurry, but she was furious and fierce and dangerous and lovely and he loved her like that.
"What did you do to me, beast!?"
"Whoa, there. I think you're the one assaulting me now."
"Don't play the victim with me! Tell me what you did to me!?"
His blood sang with the pressure she applied to his wrists, as he swore inwardly; he shouldn't be attracted to her.
"Ah, nothing. I think you just decided to play the helpless maiden with me and faint from the slightest pressure. I was of course the very gallant prince and saved my darling princess."
Her face contorted into an even angrier and more beautiful grimace and she twisted his wrists and tightened her thighs around his hips almost to the point of pain. He wondered how furious she'd be if she knew what effect her body had on his own and how far off it was from what she wanted.
"Stop bullshitting me! You did something to me, and you're gonna pay for it!"
"Tsk, tsk. You were never a fan of curious tales. Anyhow, I put a spell on you, and wanted to use you as my toy, but then I didn't like how quiet you were and decided to wake you up. I left you on the bed, waited for you to wake up and here we are now."
Who knew how long they stayed like that.
"Naww, what's the matter? Kog'Maw got your tongue?" he finally dared to tease her, refusing to put up anymore with her silence and that expression that he couldn't read, that he hated cause he didn't know what was going on behind it, in that smart little head of hers.
She stared right through him and deadpanned.
"I can tell when a person is telling the truth."
And then leaned in, closing in on him, until the moment his whole vision was full of her, until his whole world was her and her smell and her eyes, and and and―
"You're not telling the whole of it."
When she brushed his lips against his, it was slow, but not shy; it was tentative, like when you tested out something new that you wanted, but you weren't sure if it was good for you. He responded in a likely manner, unsure of what she wanted, unsure whether she realised what she was doing.
"Shauna…." He delighted in saying her first name, "not that I'm complaining, but what the hell are you thinking?"
Her thumb had started to slowly caress his wrists and he did his best to concentrate on her and not on the rough texture of her skin, so used to pulling the trigger on people like him. Was she measuring his pulse before going in to end it?
Her eyes were still glazed over, unguarded and honest and confused, and he wondered what had happened to her. Maybe he hit her head when he was carrying her to bed?
"The hell if I know."
Within the second she had come down onto him again and was kissing him again; no timidness, no shyness this time, only the sharp realisation of want and desire and forbidden things woven so tightly together they barely took breaths when they pulled away. And at that moment he knew: she had felt what her body had done to his and in return she had felt the same.
And they dissolved into a fit of scratching nails and searching arms and their painful pleasure, lost to the world, and for once, his mind was silent.
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On the next morning, he felt her stir before even the crack of dawn, and knew in his gut, even without waking up, she was going to leave.
Half-delirious with sleep he murmured:
"Stay."
And she did.
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I tried to find the balance between the dorky mage we see on the fields and the dark maniac we read about in lore. Maybe he was just a homicidal kid who grew up into a doubting period?