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The few vampires the Dragonborn saw before she met Serana were of a very different sort. Clever, at times, if one considered Movarth, but still driven by nothing more than hunger. Consumed by it, in the end.
A rather obvious sort of monster. And then there were the elegant terrors of Serana’s family, their desires so well-sated by everyone they’d crushed beneath them.
Not Serana. Not the way she bites her lip as she winds her way through some narrow cave after the Dragonborn, silent in contrast to the clanking of armor. The way she darts back from the coffins of the Draugr, dark and heavy and yet never so well-secured as the one she’d been kept in.
She fights at the Dragonborn’s side with spell and summon and complains about the sun, the light of Magnus weighing down upon her. Speaks sideways about her time spent in caves. Spent trapped beneath the earth.
But she does not ask for what she needs.
In time, instead, it’s freely offered. After another fight, another draugr in ancient rags trying to shout them down, the Dragonborn brushes a hand against her forehead to keep the drip of blood from her eyes.
“I keep forgetting to ask,” she says, pulling off her helmet to loose the red curls of her hair, “but when was the last time you fed?”
Serana hesitates. And that’s strange in and of itself. Whatever else one might say of Serana, that she cares for a family terrible beyond description, that she fears close walls, or that she does not fully understand while others fear her, she is not so shy about what she is.
“Two days ago,” she says after a pause that seems to stretch out in the now-quieted ruins.
“Hmm. Let’s fix that, then.” The Dragonborn toys with her collar, then frowns and pulls off her gauntlets instead. She holds her wrist out to Serana, upturned, veins visible beneath the skin.
“You’re sure?” Serana glances over to the crossbow hanging at the Dragonborn’s side, the weapon of a vampire hunter. Of the Dawnguard.
“I keep a lot of potions with me. It won’t be any trouble.” She reaches her other hand out and runs her fingers through Serana’s hair, splitting the dark waves. “Don’t make me insist.”
Serana smiles, only showing a hint of her teeth.
Then she moves so quickly that the orange gleam of her eyes seems to blur.
It’s a delicate bite, for all her speed, tucked as gently against the wrist as if it were a kiss. And she doesn’t linger, taking the smallest taste of blood and then laying her own hand over the wound.
The wound closes, but a small shimmer of blood remains. Serana runs her finger through this, tracing out curves and swirls upon the Dragonborn’s arm in a pattern that’s almost familiar at first, the memory lingering just out of sight.
The Dragonborn shivers, and yet starts to undo the leather straps of her armor nonetheless.
Serana takes a step back.
“You’re holding back,” the Dragonborn says, and feels foolish for it. Of course Serana is holding back; how easily vampires can damage their prey.
But she can take a little more damage. She smiles a little, as the memory coalesces. The painted cows, gifts and offerings alike in traditions so old most Nords have forgotten them.
“Only a little more,” Serana says.
But she too smiles as the Dragonborn brushes hair back to expose her neck. Serana buries her face in those crimson curls first, takes a deep, unnecessary breath. And then, so quickly, she bites.
It’s barely perceptible at first, the smallest pressure, the prick of spiky grass. And then Serana’s arm wraps around her and she can feel the rhythm of her own heart, the crucial beat of it, and the beautiful languor of that bite, the way all her fears slip away, the way Serana presses her fingers against her lips, and the growing warmth as Serana regains something closer to mortality. Or the appearance of it.
The Dragonborn leans her head back to further expose the column of her neck and lets out a little murmur of pleasure that she wouldn’t quite admit as being a moan.
“Hold still.” Serana lifts her head just long enough to speak. Blood decorates her fangs and lower lip, and she licks it away slowly, the red blending in with tongue and mouth.
And so the Dragonborn remains perfectly still, as if she’s suddenly discovered the arts of stealth and found them welcoming. Her head grows a little lighter as Serana continues, the tomb around them turning to the gray blur of old stone, the rusting clank of a trap ever half-engaged.
Serana lingers in her turn, her tongue scraping over every edge of the small wound. Presses her fangs in to draw a bit more blood forth, to revel in the flow of it. The intermixture of trust and heat.
The brief moment where she licks that fading line of blood from the Dragonborn’s forehead.
The Dragonborn remains so still until Serana pulls away again, and then reaches for her armor. Sways just a little at the weight of steel. Chooses a potion instead.
“Better?” she says, before downing the potion. She doesn’t wait for an answer before she leans in to place a kiss on Serana’s cheek.
“Better.”
“Good. Next time I’m picking somewhere with a bed.”