Chapter Text
She quickly guessed who she ended up on the team with. However, she couldn't refuse his help, they would miss a rogue. And it was this compulsion that disturbed her entire worldview.
From the moment she decided to drag him into her tent and tend to him and he looked surprised, to now when she looked at his right profile in the light of the moon and the fire.
They were sitting as a group, but she had been staying a bit more to the side for a long time, allowing herself to do something that had become her little routine for a long time, something she hadn't done for ages - sketching.
She was a vampire hunter who shared her supplies, food, and daily life with a vampire. Her faith in her mission, which was given to her by her father, was tested. And she despaired, irreversibly.
Vampires were supposed to be heartless, cruel and toying with the suffering of others, but here, the vampire she was drawing in her sketchbook was hurt, hurt and scared. He tried to survive in every way, without necessarily wanting to be evil.
Gods, my family will curse me... she thought and pursed her lips tighter.
Her mission really made no sense. Catching lesser vampires was pointless. most often they were not to blame. Only their masters, gentlemen. She felt like crying the more she learned about this elven vampire's story. She never thought she'd feel any sympathy for a vampire, much less to this extent.
She pursed her lips even tighter. She was supposed to be a hunter. A heartless hunter, and currently her heart was held by a fucking vampire.
She stopped sketching, looking at Astarion... who was gone. She started looking around.
"My dear, what are you doing there?" Suddenly she felt breathing near her ear and she jumped in place, quickly closing her sketchbook.
"By all the gods, can you not sneak in?" she looked at him, her blood pressure rising.
"But I wasn't sneaking around. If you had focused on your surroundings and not on... this, you would have heard me," there was a bit of irritation in his voice, although more interest in her and her sketchbook. "Do you have more of my drawings in it?" he asked, and his long fingers simply took her sketchbook, deftly turning it between his fingers.
When she nodded, he opened it. It only filled four pages, but... the drawings were very realistic and accurate.
The first showed a man sitting under a tree, reading a book, with Owlbear sitting on his lap, while in the background, he captured Karlach and Wyll watching. She drew them quite small, but with strong enough characteristics that they were easily recognizable.
The second drawing showed him during a fight. She took the image out of her head. Then she stared at him and took an arrow to the shoulder, but she didn't regret it.
The third drawing... was just his face, with a slight smile. She didn't know when she caught this moment, but it was definitely... different from the rest. She focused on his eyes and his rather happy expression, and most of all... she used colors. The red of his eyes, the white of his hair and the paleness of his skin. It was all there, down to every little detail.
The fourth was halfway through. How he sat by the fire, the flame reflecting on his face along with the moonlight. First drawing of his face from the side. Everything looked as if she wanted to write down the memory of him, every detail of him, on the pages of a really good sketchbook. She had to buy it.
"I know I'm enchantingly beautiful, but I've never felt like my charms worked on you, my dear," he handed her sketchbook right into her hands and sat down next to her.
"You're just nicely proportioned," she muttered, rolling her eyes, but didn't go back to sketching. She won't give him that satisfaction.
"I've heard all kinds of compliments, but this one is probably the furthest from saying 'you're the most beautiful man I've ever met,'" he laughed, moving his hand gently in the air. "What an idiot you are," she sighed, getting up from the ground.
"You'd better eat something and go meditate. You haven't done it for three days," and she left without saying goodbye to her tent.
And he sat there for a while, with his mouth slightly open.