It was a perfect twilight by the time she'd finished setting up the camp. As quick fingers tied the last line into place, she greedily took in a lungful of that fresh, green air, letting it out slowly with a sigh, patched leather hands meeting at the small of her back as she stood. Bright gold and pale rose was giving away to an indigo bloom, where stars were beginning to make themselves known. Gods, she loved this time of the day, her body wracked with the aches of her travels and the diminishing light giving her permission to rest each and every one of them once she got the damn fire going and the meat roasting.

Verlaine eyed the rabbit, laying neatly skinned and skewered beside her bedroll, and found her mouth watering at the thought of the crisp meat spitting over the, as of yet, unmade fire and dropped down onto her rear to coax the pile of rocks and sticks into a fitting inferno while her stomach growled like a bear. Crickets chirruped in sympathy, the air mustering enough momentum to play with the long strands of dark hair. In the sunlight, that hair would occasionally bloom with the suggestion of deep blues buried beneath all that jet black, but under the darkening sky it splayed over her folded arms like static ink.

It wouldn't be long now, he liked to make an entrance, and the night framed him far better than any true blue sky or dwindling twilight. It would be all to easy to let her nerves catch her in the gut like a fish hook while she sat here idly turning the spit, but she had time for that later, and holding it at bay was far easier while the mingled scents of the river, the fading autumn blooms and the fresh, sizzling meat, took her mind back to the days of other campfires.

The faces of her friends would never fully fade from her mind's eye, but it was getting harder and harder to recreate the little inflections and expressions that caused affection to bloom into that chest pounding love and pride that she had felt for all of them. They had all been connected in a way that was different from romantic love, family, or simple friends. Every life was a sacred thing in their small band of weirdos and outcasts, every single one of them relying on the other to have their backs, and despite the quarrels and moral quandaries, that was exactly what they did.

They had been brothers, sisters, comrades, and on more than one occasions angels wearing bloodied faces as they pulled her out of one scrape or another. They had been her family, her unspoken joy.

Her love.

The mental images shuffled as she tried to remember the way Karlach's lips quirked when she understood a hidden meaning between careful words, or Gales horrified face when she came bounding out of the woods one night, elated enough to show off her newly acquired owlbear form that she had forgotten not everyone carried a permanent supply of animal speaking potions. She'd made him swear, the memory coaxing a small smile from her lips. But she couldn't recall his face, and it was getting harder and harder to do so with all of them.

In her efforts to recall the past, the stark, hooded glare of scarlet eyes was brought to the foreground and she shied away from it as though it burned. It was stupid of course, to keep him so at bay in her thoughts when his very presence would grace her campfire soon enough. All that anxiety, the nerves, the anticipation would hit her like one of Dammon's hammers, right before his very eyes. But she wanted these few moments of almost desperate nostalgia to herself. She needed to remember them as they were then, because she had no idea how they were now. It was the price she paid for that single word, spoken in a tiny room while her knees pressed against the faded floorboards.

Once again she had stumbled aimlessly into a thought too hot to touch and she physically waved it away like a particularly annoying gnat. Nope, not going there, not now, it was a thought charged with so much regret, sorrow and righteous indignation that she didn't dare probe it.

"Fuck"

The flat statement echoed out into the almost silent night. It felt good. As though all her thoughts had wrapped themselves into a fist and hurtled out into nothingness like a verbal punch. One night a year. Just one. That was the deal. And for fifty years they had both kept that promise. Him, because he needed it, her…well what choice could she possibly have? He had become the very air she had breathed back then, and she had choked on his absence the moment she fled their city. Verlaine felt the ball of emotion starting to gather in her guts again as her brain tried to tug her into the direction of that terrible night. Her jaw tightened against the oncoming wave. She would not fucking cry, not here, huddled with her chin on her knees while the rabbit merrily turned on her makeshift spit.

She made her choice, heartbreaking as it had been and still was. But there was no scroll or potion that would allow her to fix how things had turned out. Now she was bound to a yearly tryst that was absolutely masochistic on her part. With a disgruntled sniffle, the elf scrubbed the threatening tears from her eyes and angrily snatched the rabbit from the fire.

The taste of freshly cooked meat did the job of gloriously wiping her mind clean for the time it took her to ravenously wolf down the steaming rabbit. There was always something slightly carnivorous about Verlaine, something slightly feral. After so many years as a nomadic beast tamer, it was hardly surprising. In the company of others she managed to hold it back with a sort of regal austerity, but alone she cared not for the grease that dripped down her chin or the way the meat seemed to be falling apart around her fingers.

She had enough dignity to wash both hands and face by the time she was done picking apart her meal down to the bone. Now she could do nothing more but wait, and she hated waiting. Impatience was not a virtue but she wielded it roughly when anticipation was just around the corner. She had nothing but time. But time killed you by the seconds, time gave you room to think the unwanted thoughts, and time would always crawl along its belly, mercilessly slow when she waited for him to appear.

~o0O0o~

"Gods damn it…You vicious little hedge witch!"

She watched him paw at his face as he hissed, eyes pressed tightly closed against the poison spray he tried to claw away, leaving her enough advantage to keep slamming her hands into his chest, pushing him towards the borders of the forest that surrounded their camp. She glanced behind her shoulder as she shoved him, and followed into the darker canopied area, trying to glean if anybody had heard his rather inventive expletive. Nobody stirred, only Scratch, who tilted his head in a question she could easily read and answer. With a shake of her head, she gave Astarion one final shove, years of manhandling wild creatures and his own half blinded state giving him no choice but to follow the momentum of his own stumbling feet or end up on his ass.

By the time he'd gotten the wet slime out of his eyes and flicked it away with a snarl of disgust, he was staring at her with barely checked fury, the skin around those disturbing eyes slightly pinkened now, though the color was outdone but the violent crimson glare that practically threw arrows into her heart. She met his gaze with a folding of her tanned and scratched arms over her chest, one brow raised over a steady gray eye that met his stare without giving much ground.

Of course she wasn't nearly as unperturbed as she was making herself out to be, and it was a work of quick thinking to carefully slow her breathing so that her heart didn't trip hammer at the ferocity of his incredulous stare.

"Stop looking at me like you didn't deserve that"

Her voice was steady, calm…perhaps even reasonable. Good. She realized she was treating him like one the aggressive beasts she had contended with, slow, careful words and a stance that would not brook intimidation. And honestly, thinking back to the flash of fangs in the dim firelight as her eyes had opened, she wasn't too far off with the comparison right now.

"I wasn't going to hurt you…"

She heard his attempt to suck some of the venom out of his own voice, trying to be just as reasonable while utterly furious, because as spitting mad as he was, he knew his existence as a member in this camp, hinged on what was said next. However words hissed, between clenched teeth, rarely came across as reasonable.

"I just needed…."

"Yes I know what you wanted, my question is. What would make you so foolish as to try and steal it away in the darkness of the night instead of asking?"

His face had been warring with the contortions of trying to neutralize the epic tension of the situation and his still seething anger, when her words seemed to pour cold water over all of it, all expression giving way to a slightly slack jawed incredulousness.

"You…knew?!"

She rolled her eyes at him and unfolded one of her arms to underline each of her points as she took one careful step forwards, heel then toe, her eyes never daring to leave him, because her position here was just as precarious. Cornered beasts would often go for the throat if given no other choice.

"Pale skin, red eyes….and honestly I question the collective intelligence of our entire party if nobody has spotted the fangs yet. I knew what you were the minute you were grinning down at me with a knife at my throat….and you still haven't answered my question"

She watched him place both hands on his hips, probably to keep himself from strangling her if the restless way his feet moved was any indication. She could see he was caught between dumb incredulity and the desire to make this mistake just disappear. They both knew all too well that even if he murdered her here and ran, he still had to contend with the tadpole, an impossible feat on his own. However, he struck her as someone who loathed letting anybody get the upper hand on him, and his very nature likely hated the way he had to swallow down the remains of that anger like a bitter ale before he could speak again.

She allowed him the time, because they needed him as equally as he needed them. It wasn't the vampirism that bothered her. Man, bear, vampire, herself. They were all beasts of different natures, and that only became a problem when one upset the balance. No, it was the taking without asking, the blatant nature of it….the stupidity of thinking she wouldn't notice. It rankled her in a way she couldn't describe, as if she could possibly be so idiotic that she wouldn't know!.

"At best I thought if I asked you would say no…."

"So you thought you'd skip that bit and risk your own neck by just taking what you wanted. What did you think was going to happen after?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off, too caught up in the fallacy of it all, almost…disappointed that he had proven to be….so fucking stupid!

"I know you think most druids are some sort of vagabond mages with their heads stuck in trees but I'm not so cerebrally challenged that i wouldn't notice two bloody holes in my neck!"

"Will you shut up for five seconds and let me explain to you, you….. unrelenting harpy!"

She hadn't expected the sudden step forward, and her hand flattened against his chest, storm clouds gathering in warning just below her furrowed brow. His own fists clenched at his sides for a few moments, his head tilting up to the canopy, eyes closing in the effort to bring himself down a couple of notches. When fists flexed into fingers he looked at her again, his own emotional weather seeming to have calmed some. She took her hand away, tucking it against her body again, her silence indicating that she would give him room to talk.

"Look…after nearly two hundred years of hiding in the shadows you get used to things being….a certain way. People don't tend to say 'Yes please' when you ask them for their blood…not unless they are particularly depraved that is"

His voice dropped a few octaves at that last bit, as it often did when even the whisper of anything explicit came to mind or floated in the general direction of a conversation. She didn't even think he did it on purpose, not all the time, it was almost….instinctual for him.

"The worst case scenario of my simply asking you would have been you overreacting and spearing me with a roasting spit"

He gestured a lot with his hands when he was agitated, or trying to make a point. And his brow furrowed every time he had to war with his own instincts in order to seem reasonable or appear non threatening. Verlaine bit the inside of her mouth in admonition, the man wasn't a collection of behaviors for her to study like the wolves of the Silver Marches.

"You could have told me you knew. It would have made things simpler"

She regarded his reproachful tone with a tilt of her head, eyes lifting upwards as she considered the validity of his statement. She'd assumed he had his reasons for not telling them at first, and after finding the boar, she was sure he would fess up, but her good intention of allowing him his confession in his own time, did sort of put a tiny fraction of the blame on her shoulders.

"I could have, I wanted to believe it wasn't my business until it proved to be, but that doesn't excuse your attempt at a midnight snack. If you were desperate enough to risk your own neck to get at mine, surely you could have mustered the courage to ask"

He seemed to pause for a moment…utterly. His body went still as the trees that surrounded them, when his eyes finally slid back to hers, they were cautious, as was the inquisitive tilt of his head.

"And what would you have said had I asked?"

She shrugged, taking the time to slow her breaths against the faint skip of a beat in her heart, her eyes sliding to the crescent moon sky as that flash of fangs appeared behind her eyes again, and something stirred.

"Astarion, I am pragmatic to a fault. Not one person in this camp can say that they don't need each other as much as the others need them. From what little I know of your kind you can survive on animals alone, but I'm guessing it's not quite as effective as that of a thinking creature?"

He nodded, not speaking, and she could see that the tension had left his body now, replaced by that effortless yet carefully arranged slouch as he eyed her in what could only be a hungry silence. He had gone from getting hit in the eyes with poisoned spray to her completely reasonable reaction to his very existence, and if she wasn't careful, he wouldn't hear a damn word she said next until he had what he needed. He was going to get what he wanted, so what else mattered?. She took a step forward, getting into his personal space, forcing his gaze to move from her throat to her eyes.

"Can I trust you Astarion. Can you promise, never without mine or anyone else's permission. I need to hear you say it. I can't watch your back out there if i have to worry about you randomly sinking your teeth into mine"

She watched him almost form some kind of illicit quip upon his lips, that instinctual reaction to seduction given an inch and attempting to take a mile. She also watched it die on parted lips as he seemed to make a concentrated, if brief effort, to actually be sincere.

"I promise, you can trust me. There will be no more midnight visits, and never without your permission"

She felt the genuine nature of his words, mostly because she knew the alternatives were either exile from their camp or a stake through the heart, and one tended to side towards the truthful once such unspoken threats were on the table. It was slightly marred by the thickening in his voice and the way his head lowered to bring the scent of her throat closer to him. She forced herself not to indulge in the initial reaction to step back from his suddenly crowding proximity. She supposed she enjoyed the scent of cooked meat before she bit into it, but no fireside dining had ever felt quite this intimate.

His nose brushed the thin skin of her pulse point and she felt it jump for him before she could even think to control it. It was all very well being pragmatic, but that didn't mean she was quite prepared for what a vampire feeding would feel like. He wasn't an animal, not any kind of animal she had encountered, and there was more than a little sensuality here that she hadn't bargained for. He stepped even closer, one foot sliding between her own, and it was her understanding that she either step back with his encroaching movements or be trapped in this awkward and very suddenly tense stance with him.

He kept moving, kept closing that one step distance until rough bark met her back and she understood. He gave her that one step of space between them once more, allowing her breathing room while his own breath played a whisper along the length of her throat. Needing to take just a little initiative, or maybe just some control of the situation, she slipped her hair out of the way, curling it in her own fist as an ease of access and oh gods….as something to hold onto when his mouth finally pressed to her throat.

She braced herself for the inevitable pain of teeth piercing her flesh, but also that sudden rush of rampant energy that slid down her spine like hot fingers skipping along her skin. She bit back an unwelcome shudder and then promptly let it fly on the tail of a sharp gasp as he finally bit into her throbbing pulse.

The first swallow drew a low sound from his throat while her knees tried to retire early at the sudden shock of sensation. Fingers encircled her upper arms, holding her up and pressing her body firmly against the tree meant to be supporting her. She felt her lips pulling back from her own teeth in a silent, unseen snarl as he sucked and swallowed greedily. Small but intimate sounds slipping into her ears like sweet poison from his throat.

Even without those sounds, the primal nature of it all had quickly turned what was meant to be perfunctory into something all the more….wild. Verlaine had worked with beasts for nearly 100 years, she had roamed as one of them herself for long enough to have acquired some of their more natural traits, though she had never crossed the line like some druids were wont to do.

This was close, this was so damn fucking close that she had to briefly fight her own wildshape for the first time in a long time. Control was her greatest weapon when it came to roaming the wilds for so long. She didn't expect even the tiniest of slips, and yet here she was, half pinned to a tree while he worked at her throat in ravenous swallows, her fingernails aching to lengthen and….

…and do what?!

That was enough for her to twist one arm from his grip and brace it between them. She couldn't push him away or he might tear at her throat by accident alone but she forced thick words from her throat needing him to get away from her before she had a moment to honestly answer her own question.

"Enough…Astarion stop"

The words were not as firm as she would have liked them to be, but to her surprise he did unlatch from her throat, though his breath still brushed his shallow, heated pants along her skin, causing her to briefly hold her own breath. When he did lift his head to look at her and slowly released his grip on the arm still pinned, it was with a sly expression of knowing that she could have cheerfully smacked off his face.

Instead, she nodded, a gesture of, 'that's that then' and underlining of the moment because who really knew what to say under this type of circumstances. In her admittedly small world she knew how to wrestle beasts into submission and calm the heart of a frightened forest. She absoloutley did not know what to do with the way his eyes continued to watch her as she slid away from his somewhat caging position over her, or the certainty that he had seen something in her she really wished he hadn't.

Eyes to the treeline where their camp resided, one foot in front of the other, that was about as much as she could manage while she still felt his eyes boring into her back. It wasn't the miniscule appearance of her wildshape that bothered her. She had more or less adequate control over it. No it was the brief sensation that, just for a second, he had seen her as entirely naked in the somewhat metaphorical sense.

Verlaine gave everything she could to the collective band of strays and monsters. If you told her there was something to be done, she would see it done, whether by force or conversation. There was a charm of steadfastness and steady loyalty of the cause. But she gave them nothing of herself. No campfire stories that were not perfunctory or vague, no insight to cling to beneath all the fur and leather that covered her. The nomadic lifestyle she had lived for over 100 years had suited her nature, and it was the simple familiarity of her ways that kept her a closed book. What good would it do to allow others to rifle through the pages when she would soon move on to the next place?

Now it felt like the vampire had managed to catch a glimpse of that forbidden tome and it made her more uncomfortable than the teeth at her throat.

"This was a gift you know…"

She stopped walking and silently prayed that he wasn't wearing the 'smug bastard' expression when she turned around. Once again, he seemed genuine, or at least as genuine as he could make himself appear while looking like he'd murdered everyone else in line when it came to handing out flawless features.

"I won't forget it"

The curt nod she gave in reply probably didn't match the gravitas of that statement, but since she couldn't make her own voice sound like sex waiting in the darkness, it was the best she could do before marching and definitely not running, back to the camp.

~o0O0o~

Time continued its murderous rampage second by second, until her world became as small as the circle of light given by her campfire. Until she looked up of course, where the sky had spread its vastness in great black wings dotted with stars and distant galaxies that were only just visible out here in the wilderness. Verlaine had enjoyed a few comforts of the cities she visited in passing from one area to the next, but she could never understand how anyone could wish to miss this spectacular image night after night. There had been plenty of times when she had traveled by moonlight out of necessity, and she had never failed to be captured by the magical ethereal nature of it.

The night was where dreams roamed and the quiet beauty of nature seemed to breathe beneath her feet. She kicked her boots off at this thought, relishing the feel of grass and dry earth beneath toes that curled and uncurled, the texture of it pleasing…grounding. Eyes closed and she smiled at the sky as she pushed her hands into the dirt beside her, feeling that familiar thrum of wanted connection under searching fingertips. The temptation was there, to reach into the forest's network and feel its heaving, living breath, to hear it whisper to her its many voices. The wind picked up and brushed her face, as if in gentle encouragement and the elf tilted her head into it, as though a hand had touched her there.

"You know. I have dined in every opulent space that Baldurs Gate has to offer, seen Kings and patriarchs in the finest of fabrics while they lounged upon gold and supped on ancient wines…"

Every muscle tautened like a tightened spring while her fight or flight responses fought each other over who got to go first, in that scant second when his voice pierced the silence like a stiletto blade to the small of the back.

"..And yet I don't think i have ever seen anyone so content as my little love playing in the dirt"

Once a year for fifty years and she still wasn't prepared for him. The voice alone conjured sensations of fear, joy, sorrow and not to put too fine a point on it, quite unrestrained lust that rolled like a runaway wagon at the mention of that fucking ridiculous pet name.

She managed to open her eyes, but they were useless while the firelight half blinded them and she could only make out the vaguest suggestion of his shape on the other side of the clearing. She stood without thinking about it, loose earth falling from her fingers, gray eyes black in the firelight.

After all that they had been through, there were always questions, polite niceties and bland gestures that they should make. But both of them knew, as they stared at each other from across the clearing, that time would kill them all the faster now that they were finally together again.

He stalked, there was no other word for the way he moved, around the circular clearing, her own feet responding in kind so that they both began a slow, but inwardly moving stance that drew them achingly closer. He smiled that bladed smile and something in Verlaines subconscious rolled over and exposed its belly.

How in the hells could he still do that?

Raw tension flowed between them like turbulent waters as all the things they didn't have time to say seared in their eyes. It occurred to her more often than she liked, that their time apart made things so much worse. She could barely think when in his proximity. He was all consuming, even when he was just standing there, drawing that circle closer with that old cat like grace that was devastating once you knew how those muscles played beneath the finery and theatrics.

Beneath all that cloth, leather and lecherous tones, there was a predator, and it was staring back at her now with an intensity that would have ripped the bodice of any lovestruck heroine out of sheer narrative principle. But he stared across the fire at a woman who dared to fight monsters in the secret hearts of long forgotten forests, and that intensity was mirrored back at him in stormcloud gray.

She could hear her heart in her own ears, and the lengthening curve of his smirk told what she of course already knew. He could hear it too, and he liked it. Not because she represented some weak and helpless prey, but because he knew she was a coiled spring, a tensed muscle, a cursing claw that would eventually strike out in one way or another. Perhaps to kiss that sinful mouth with brutal need, or perhaps to splash all that glorious white flesh with crimson for all the things he has done and is going to do as Baldurs Gate's ruling Vampire Lord.

She didn't know either, and their circle was drawing closer while time made fools of all the things that should be said.