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Chapter Text

Traversing the Underdark was harder than it was traversing the world above ground. Araj sighed, as she was resting at the outpost used mostly by those exploring the Underdark for “science”. Years she had dreamed of her glorious return to her homeland. Years she had cursed the sun above, as it was hurting her eyes and her skin. Right now she was cursing the hard to traverse ground she was travelling now.

She had gotten herself a roth to carry her supplies. After all those animals were known to be fairly good with the uneven terrain. But right now she felt like complaining about the animal as well, after it had refused half the morning to travel the path she had wanted to choose.

It was her time. This was her time! She had finished her research and even those accursed other houses had to respect that. They had to respect the things she had found. It should bring her honor. And with that honor she would rebuild the house of Oblodra.

She was not the only one resting at the outpost of course, despite being the only drow. If people were suspicious of her kind in the world above, the same was true by a tenfold down here. Rightfully so. Once her house would be reestablished, she would build out her power. And she would take both males, as well as some non-drow slaves. As it was her right.

At this moment, though, she was sitting in the corner of what once had probably been some sort of watchtower, her hood drawn into her face. She was eating some stew served by an old dwarven woman, who ran this place somewhat like an inn.

Araj wasn’t sure whether she would continue her travel today. She was at least two tendays away from Menzoberranzan and that was being generous. Since she and her mother had left the Underdark half a century ago, the place had shifted quite a bit. She heard about it when she had been in Baldur’s Gate, but she had not realized how bad it was. Apparently it had all happened due to the event that those haughty elvish historians called “the Second Sundering”. It did not matter. What remained was her issue: She did not know these pathways any longer, and she could only estimate how long her travel would take her.

She was chewing on some pieces of mushroom, drinking the rather bitter ale, when something a gnome at the bar said, caught her attention.

“A bloody vampire!”

Her eyes darted over there. She just could not help it. She had no idea what the gnomish man was talking about, but vampires? Well, it caught her attention. Listening to him and his conversation with a human and the dwarven woman owning the place, she could not help but wonder.

“Oh, yeah,” the dwarf said, while cleaning out a mug. “You get to see a lotta vampire’s in these parts these days.” She shrugged.

“You do not seem to be concerned too much about them,” the human noted.

“Eh.” The old dwarf shrugged. “They came here with some of them Gurs, y’know? Dunno. Seem to be held on a short leash or something.”

“What do you mean, here?” the gnome asked.

“Like that old cult outpost down towards the east. Grymforge they call the entire thing. Mostly ruins. Had been settled by those duergar for a while, but for some reason or another those guys left like a few months ago. The vampires came down here three months ago then.” She was shrugging again. “Look, if they don’t bother me, I’m not one to go bother them. So as long as nobody comes to suck my throat dry, I couldn’t give less of a shit, what they are doing here.”

The human drank a deep gulp from his ale. “Sounds bloody dangerous, if you ask me.”

“Yeah,” the gnome agreed. “Especially if they are skulking around everywhere.”

At this the innkeep laughed. “I mean, it’s the bloody Underdark, y’know? It’s supposed to be bloody dangerous. But so far I can tell ya, that those vamps have not been up for a lot of trouble. Like, I’ll hear, if those bloodsuckers are up to no good. But so far, they seem to have not been up to much at all.”

“Then why did they come here?” the human asked, but was once more met with a shrug.

“What do I care? I run a waystation, not a spy agency.”

***

Araj had ended up renting a room up in that tower. Though instead of sleeping she was standing at the rather tiny window, looking out into the chasm below. The eerie twilight that was so very constant in the Underdark was familiar to her. It was what had been with her throughout her youth.

She knew she should sleep, she knew she should. But after the conversation she had overheard in the pub below, she could not help but think.

Most of her life she had spent researching alchemy with one simple goal. To proof that her family had never been misguided. To proof that the knowledge of the house of Oblodra would be of use to the other houses of Menzoberranzan. She barely remembered the drow city, so long it had been since her family had been banished from there. And everyone else had been gone.

It did not matter. That was, what she had always told herself. As long as one female survived to carry the family’s legacy, the family would live on. Her goal was simple, really. Return to Menzoberranzan, impress everyone with the knowledge she had gathered in the one and a half centuries past, find some males to serve her, birth a daughter, and from there on reestablish the glory of her house. Simple. Clear. Effective. She had worked so hard to get to this point, and now…

She should travel straight to Menzoberranzan. She knew she should. But there was this little other emotion that was hard to describe. She would like to call it curiosity, but it was something else. It was an almost primal urge.

Not one vampire, but several? Having settled down here in the Underdark for some reason? Several vampires, who were not that far out of her way?

She had never visited Grymforge, but she knew the location. It was about a four days travel from here. Not that much of a delay, was it?

Several vampires, huh?

Araj could not even tell exactly when her fascination with vampires had started. She was fairly certain that it had been that alchemical book she had read when she had been maybe forty years of age. It had been a book describing how the alchemical properties of blood were changed through the vampire bite. How one could use a vampire, let them bite someone, and then harvest the blood from the vampire’s veins. That was, if one was strong enough to somehow contain the vampire.

While all of this had been interesting in her study of the Sanguine Arts… If she was honest, it was not, what had stuck in her mind after reading that book. No, instead it had been that fascination and wonder, when it came to the question: How would it feel? How would it feel to have a vampire bite your neck, have them suck your blood slowly, and deliberately? How would it feel to be fed on? And that thought had never let go of her.

Of course, once they had settled in Baldur’s Gate, she had found that she was not the only person with a fascination for this idea. There were quite a few books – many of them of the rather salacious kind – that went into this fantasy. And despite knowing it was a guilty pleasure, she had read quite a few of those publications. Fantasizing.

Sadly enough, though, she had found it was hard to find a vampire who was both willing to let one live, and yet to bite a willing “victim” to fulfill her desire.

But if there were several of them… If there were several of them, maybe she could get lucky?

She groaned in frustration with herself, as she went over to the straw bed in the corner, lying down. “You are cleverer than this, Araj,” she muttered to herself. Because she was not a confused forty-year-old any longer. She knew that chances were, that if there were quite a few vampires and she came there on her own volition, she might well be sucked dry.

Even if that innkeep was right and there were some Gur holding those vampires on a short leash. So far her few meetings with vampires had not endeared her to that fanged kind.

This was just silly fantasy. Maybe a test brought by the Queen of Spiders herself. To test Araj’s commitment to her quest, to her house, to the Mother of Spiders herself.

Araj knew what her responsibility was. She just… There was still that silly little girl inside of her, who just needed to know.

Chapter Text

“Someone new came.”

“Someone new?”

“Yeah, a drow. They say they’re an alchemist.”

“An alchemist? What are they doing here?”

“I don’t know. Just heard about it myself.”

The story spread fast throughout Grymforge. The story of the new arrival. As such it was not really surprising that it did not take too long to reach Aurelia’s ears as well, while she was sitting in one of those old reading rooms, passing the time. Because what was left for them to do but to pass the endless years, trying to fight their own hunger?

She was ready to admit that their decision to go to the Underdark had not been the worst. At least down here they would never have to fear the sun’s deadly rays, and were free to move around. But with nearly seven thousand of them, it was hard for them to find enough to feed on. And the hunger… Oh, the hunger was constantly scratching on the back of her mind.

It was better than what they had come from. This she reminded herself of again and again. Cazador was dead, once and for all. They no longer had to fear cruel torture for their smallest mistakes. They were no longer manipulated to work against each other. No, they were free. Well, as free as they were going to get, she assumed. They were still vampire spawn. Bound by both their hunger and the darkness.

She sighed, before closing her book and getting up. She might as well have a look at that new arrival. After all, they so far had not gotten many visitors since they had settled in these ruins.

They had left for the Underdark just four days after Astarion and his friends had killed Cazador. During those four days they had mostly hidden out in the sewers and the other tunnels under the city. Aurelia was still wondering what might have become of her “brother” and his companions afterwards. Was Astarion still alive? Ulma said he was, but maybe she just wanted Aurelia to keep her peace of mind. After all she still felt guilty towards that brother of hers.

While some – like Petras – had not agreed with the decision to go to the Underdark, it had been the most reasonable outcome in the end. She understood why Astarion had told them to go. After all, with their former conquests still alive… They would have been dangerous on the surface. Because the hunger was scratching on all their minds, and… for some reason Astarion had become someone who now cared about the fate of normal people.

She climbed down the long staircase to come to that big central hall of the ruins, where a small crowd had formed. Aurelia had to assume around the new arrival. Her senses could make out the small of a roth, but there were too many voices speaking over each other to make anything out.

“Why are you here?” – “Did those darn drow send you here?” – “Will the drow attack?” – “Who the fuck are you?” – “You smell kinda funny.”

Aurelia could make Yousen and Violet out at the edge of the crowd, while most of the vampire spawn around the new arrival were some of those conquests believed to be dead until that fateful night in the crypt.

It was however a firm voice that cut through all that noise. “Calm down now, everyone.” That was Ulma coming into the hall lit mostly by the lava flowing through it. “I have heard we have a new visitor. Let’s not make a bad impression, before we even know their name.”

There was some grumbling going on, as the vampires looked over to the old human woman. But in the end the crowd dispersed just a little, allowing Aurelia to see the visitor. A woman traveling with a hood and a cowl, a roth by her side that was burdened with quite a few bags. The woman had drawn the hood into her face, bot the obsidian skin on her hands did instantly betray her a drow.

Ulma, followed by her son and her niece, went over to the woman. “Do not hide your face as you enter someone else’s home, my child. Good manners would ask for you to properly introduce yourself. Who are you and what brings you here?”

The drow sighed, pushing back her hood. It revealed a rather young looking face. Given how slow elves and drow aged, it was still hard to say how old she was. Younger than two hundred years for sure. But other than that? Her hair was ashen, her eyes seemed to be violet, if Aurelia was not mistaken. There was something in her eyes, that Aurelia did not like. A certain hunger.

“Excuse my bad manners,” the drow now said and hinted at a bow. “My name is Araj Oblodra, only daughter of the House of Oblodra. I am a travelling alchemist, brought here by nothing but my scientific interest.” She spoke with a smooth voice, that sounded however just a bit haughty. Her eyes were watchful, as they glid from one person to the other.

Having focused on the drow woman, Aurelia had not even noticed how Ulma had drawn a knife, holding it now to the woman’s neck. “And how do you intent to make any of the people here serve your scientific interest?” she spat.

The woman – Araj – raised her hands. “Now, now. Were you not just reprimanding my own manners? I am rather sure that good manners will not include greeting a stranger with a knife to their throat. I promise on the name of my mother, that I am of no threat to anyone here.” She looked at Ulma now and for a long moment their eyes seemed to meet. Then, finally, the Gur elder lowered her knife, making Araj sigh.

“The focus of my study has always been the Sanguine Arts,” she now explained. “That is the alchemic study of blood. And given the close relation vampires have with blood, I thought I might be able to deepen my studies here.”

“You come to the wrong place, Ms. Oblodra,” Ulma said. “The vampires here do not drink the blood of sentient beings.”

“But they do drink blood, I have to assume. Right?”

There was a silence filling the room, as the two women looked at each other once more. But in the end Ulma sighed. “Come with me, girl. I want to talk with you alone.”

At this Araj smiled, hinting at another bow. “Of course. It would be my pleasure.”

“Fergun,” Ulma said to her sun. “Take that roth and bring it to the stables. But leave the woman’s equipment. We will see what we do about it.”

“Of course, mother,” the man said.

When Ulma left the room followed by the drow, the murmurs started back up. Because Aurelia was not the only one unable to make any sense of this.

She went over to Yousen, who was now talking to Gethen and Marille – another tiefling and a human victim of their hunts.

“Why would a drow come here of all places?” Gethen asked.

“Maybe she is some sort of spy,” Marille said.

Aurelia stood next to them, unsure how to bring herself in. “I do not think the drow are interested in this place,” she said carefully. “Because if they were… Well, they would have probably taken it a long time ago, right?”

“Who knows,” Yousen replied. “I mean, their kind had their minds long mangled up by that spider goddess of theirs, right?”

No, they had not had a lot of visitors. But some of the Gur, and few of their own kind had travelled outwards. Just to find some animals and monsters to eat – as well as find out possible threats. It was the Underdark after all, and the Underdark was a dangerous place.

Marille looked in the direction of the door through which the drow and Ulma had just vanished. “I didn’t really like… something about her. There was something about her that made my skin crawl.”

“I felt it too,” Aurelia admitted. “I do not want to end up as some sort of Guinea pig.”

Yousen grunted. “We’ll see what comes out of it. If she is not some sort of spy… Well, there is more than six thousands of us – and one of her.”

“True enough,” Gethen replied. “I guess it is just the kind of visitors you can expect in the Underdark, eh?”

“Probably,” Yousen agreed. “It’s still a fucking creepy place.”

Aurelia sighed. She only noticed now that her tail was twitching once again with anxiousness. And if she was honest, she did know why.

They had only just escaped Cazador. After decades of slavery and torture in her case – centuries in the case of some of the others. She was afraid that they might be taken once again. Might be taken by someone else.

Sure, they were vampires. They had certain powers. But she was not going to kid herself. Whatever powers they had, they were dulled by their hunger. And it was not as if Cazador had ever showed them to use anything but their bodies. They were not fighters – the four of them remaining, and clearly not the six thousand six hundred of former conquest, who had spent so long in the dungeon, at times being driven mad by their hunger. And she…

Her tail was twitching again, as she looked at the door.

She should not spy on Ulma. She mostly should not, because in the end, despite everything, the Gur had been kind to them. Harsh, but kind.

But a part of Aurelia felt, as if she just… She needed to know what was going on here. And be it just to know in time, if she had to take the same route that Leon had taken. If she had just to leave.

Chapter Text

Araj had never thought very highly of humans. After all, they were so short very short lived. A hundred years at maximum for most of them. Many did not even reach the age of seventy. Yet, because they bred like mice, they had managed to crowd the surface world so very effectively, leaving all other races to either live apart in the mountains and forests, or to make due in a world run by short-lived idiots.

Yet, Araj also knew better than to openly speak those thoughts. Especially now. Whoever this woman was, she was a woman of authority. Araj had seen it in that big hall before. Both the vampires and the other humans had listened to this woman. Yet, it also seemed that this woman was violent by nature, given that her first reaction to Araj had been to threaten her with a knife.

Right now the greyish green eyes of the woman were pinned on Araj, as if they were trying to see the core of Araj’s soul.

“Speak, child. And make it quick,” she said. “What really brings you here? Are you a drow spy?”

Araj planted what she believed to be her most winning smile onto her face. Even though she hated how that woman was speaking to her. Child! Ha! Araj was probably double this woman’s age. “I have spoken the truth,” she said, putting a hand over her heart. A gesture of truthfulness that the humans had. “I have been travelling the Underdark for a while.” This was a lie. “Alone, outside of my roth.” That at least was true. “And I have simply been made curious as I heard that some vampires had settled here. Curious enough to come here.” As she was speaking, she held the woman’s gaze, returning it confidently. “And I do have questions of my own.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed.

“For someone so concerned with manners, you have yet failed to introduce yourself,” Araj noted.

For a moment the old woman was silent, but then she sighed. “You are right about this, of course. My name is Ulma. I am the leader of the Gur tribe living here.”

“I… have heard of the Gur,” Araj said carefully. Of course she had, living on the surface as long as she had done before. “But I always believed them to be monster hunters. And you are living here with vampires, as I can see. Are they your slaves?”

Araj had not quite been prepared for the reaction she got from the woman, as she spat onto the ground. “No. No slaves. It is not what we do. We do not take slaves.”

“Then why?”

Ulma was silent for a long while, now being the one not meeting Araj’s gaze. Then she sighed. “There are six thousand six hundred and twenty-three vampire spawn living here. Out of seven thousand that left Baldur’s Gate about three months ago.”

This, too, as nothing that Araj had expected. She had heard there were “a few” vampires living here. But not almost seven thousand. Seven thousand? There should be at least one among them willing to bite her, should there not? Her heart beat quicker at this thought.

But then another thought came to her mind. “Wait. You are telling me that there have been seven thousand vampire spawn living in Baldur’s Gate?” Right where she had been for the past decades? Right under her nose?

“I am surprised you are even knowledgeable of the surface city, Ms. Oblodra,” Ulma noted.

“As I said, I am a traveler,” Araj said, trying to evade that question. “I know at least the big cities of the surface world by name.”

Again the Gur’s eyes narrowed, and Araj got the rather nasty feeling, that her lie had been looked right through. But what was she to say? Tell the story of how her house had fallen? Of how her family had been made to flee Menzoberranzan? Of how they had been robbed of both their might and their honor? Of how she had been living among the filth of the surface for so long? Most certainly not!

“Of course,” Ulma finally said. “These vampires here, they had been made slaves by a cruel vampire lord named Cazador Szarr.”

Of course Araj had heard of Cazador. The moon elf living in that haughty mansion at the wall of the Lower City. And yes, she had heard the rumors that he might be a vampire or another monster. So this came less of a surprise.

“A few of them had been made to catch everyone else here, meant to be sacrificed in one profane ritual,” Ulma said. “Had we known in time, we might have tried to stop Szarr, but by the time we found out, it had almost been too late. Thankfully it had been one of his own who rose against him and ended it.” The old woman shook her head. “No, but the reason we came here is, that among those meant to be sacrificed in that ritual had been some of our own children. And it is not the Gur way to leave family behind.” She sighed. “And, admittedly, those undead who had been barely more than victim to Szarr’s madness needed guidance on their way.” Some bitterness tinged her voice.

Now Araj’s mind was racing. Thousands of vampires living here. Thousands of them. And by the sound of it they were in a rather complicated situation.

She had to fight that rather nasty smile that wanted to spread on her face. Instead she spoke slowly. “So, you trying to keep six-and-a-half thousand vampire spawn fed and sane right now? That does sound like a rather challenging task.”

Again those greyish green eyes were pinned on Araj. “What are you saying?”

“You might be lucky that I came along when I did,” Araj replied. “Because I have been telling the truth. I am an alchemist specializing in the Sanguine Arts. I am specializing in blood alchemy. And it seems to me that this would be exactly, what you are looking for.”

Ulma was silent at this, watching Araj. There was a silent vigilance in those eyes as she did, telling Araj she needed to be careful when choosing her next few words.

“See, I do not know that much about vampires.” Another blatant lie. And maybe one she had not fully thought through. “But I believe that the hunger is driving them mad. And feeding so many of them has to be so very hard. Especially down here, where not many things live.” Now she was watching that Gur-woman was well. Those watchful eyes, that might betray some truth in Araj’s reasoning. “Correct me, if I am wrong, but mostly the Gur kill monsters, right? So, I assume that you are not willing to let those vampires run around and murder people.”

Once more those eyes narrowed, telling Araj that she was right.

“So, what you would need was some sort of way to either stretch blood to last for more vampires and for longer. Or a way to create a sort of artificial blood.”

“And you are saying that your alchemy can create such a thing?” Ulma asked.

“No. I will be honest. Right now there is no such thing that I can create. But I am positive that my skills will eventually allow me to create this in some way. If you allow me the chance to set up my laboratory in this place.”

Cold eyes were looking at Araj now, were trying to look right through her. Ironic. If Araj had not known any better, she would have guessed this old monster hunter was actually protective of those vampire spawn. “Why would you do that?”

“As I said,” Araj replied. “I am simply driven by my scientific curiosity.”

Silence fell between them. Silence, that made both their breaths sound almost rattling in the moody twilight of what seemed to be some sort of study. Then, after a while, Ulma pursed her lips.

“What would you want in return?”

And yes, here it was. That simple thing. That urge that had driven Araj to this place, even though she knew she should have made her way to Menzoberranzan. Her heart was racing with a rather happy anticipation. And a slight tingling was filling her belly. “See, there was something I have been curious about for a while.”

“And that would be?”

“Nothing horrible that you might think,” Araj said. “I just keep wondering, what it would feel like to be bitten by a vampire. So that would be my request. The payment, so to speak. I will help you and will try to find a way to feed your little vampires. In return I will be bitten by one of them. And, should I like it, this will be a regular occurrence.”

“So you want to use them for your own pleasure?” Ulma hissed.

What else were vampire spawn there for, after all? They were made to be used. But once more Araj was wise enough to not speak those words. “I just want to sate my curiosity.”

Again Ulma was pursing her lips. “This is not for me to decide. They are their own people.”

She sounded like that priced bleeder of Araj’s. But she didn’t say it.

“But… Sadly our situation is desperate, so I might put this up for discussion,” Ulma said. “But I will not say any…” She did not get to finish, as a moment later the door was swung open, as a red-skinned tiefling vampire stumbled into the room.

Araj was certain, that girl might have blushed, had she still had blood flowing in her veins. But then she looked at Ulma. “It’s alright,” she said. “I… I will do it.”

Chapter Text

Aurelia felt awkward as Ulma and the drow looked at her. Truth was, that the door had given in while she had been eavesdropping – because that was simply the kind of thing that would happen to Aurelia. She always had been clumsy. It had gotten her into trouble with Cazador a countless number of times. Now forced a smile, just as she had done so many times before. “I will do it. If… If she can help us, I will do it.” After all: How bad could it be? Drink from one person. Now that Cazador’s rules did no longer bind her that was.

Ulma sighed. “Aurelia, girl. What are you doing here?”

“I… Uhm…” Aurelia did evade the eyes of the old matriarch, as her innards felt like frozen. Sure, she knew that Ulma would not really punish her. In her mind she knew that. Yet, all she could think of right now was possible punishment.

“Were you eavesdropping?” Ulma asked, her voice stern.

“I… Yes,” Aurelia admitted. “I… I am sorry. I…”

Ulma shook her head. “Go and fetch the other spawn. Or at least those who will come, alright? We meet in the temple. Until then… I will see, what we will do about our guest.”

“Y-yes,” Aurelia quickly said. “I will.”

Her thoughts were racing, as she left Ulma’s study. Because of what she had just heard.

Things were not that easy now. Almost four hundred of them had already left or died during those three months that had passed since Cazador’s death. Some of the dead had ended their own lives in acts of desperation, now that Cazador’s will had no longer been binding them. And if their state with the hunger continued, Aurelia was most certain that more would be joining them in due time. So, if anyone could help them, she would do whatever would be needed, because the truth was, that she was feeling horrible about everything.

So many souls.

She had never liked it. The things that Cazador had made them do. Selling their bodies to bring him “willing” subjects to drink from. She had hated the prostitution, but even more than that, she had hated to be responsible for those peoples’ deaths. One should think that she would be relieved upon learning that those people had not died. But knowing they had been living for decades and more in that dungeon, starving and being kept worse than animals… No, it had not made things better. Not at all.

Sure. There had been quite a few who had been… Well. During those sixty years that she had served Cazador, Aurelia had been raped more times, than she had been ready to count. Like everyone else she had gone numb to it after a while. A part of her thought, that for those people, their fate would be deserved. But she could not really feel this. In her heart she was still sorry for their fate and their suffering. They might have deserved some punishment, but not… Not this.

It made the relations awkward right now. Especially with Leon gone. She should have gone with him, maybe. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe just because of what he had done…

But she had always been the weak one among her siblings. The weak and clumsy one, who was messing up so many times. Out of her siblings, two had tried to stand up for her. Astarion, and Leon. The oldest and the youngest. But she had done well at pushing Astarion away, and Leon… Leon had always just worked on his way out. The way out for him and his daughter.

Now here were her siblings, those who had always thought her weak – Yousen, Violet, and Petras – and the many, many victims, some of whom were not quite sane after the years, and years of being starved and held barely alive. And still. Aurelia felt, like she… She needed to do something for them. Especially those victims. Because they were in this situation because of her and the others.

Soon enough she had assembled quite a few. No, not near to the whole group, but her three remaining siblings were here, as well as a few hundred of those, who had been believed dead.

“What is this about?” someone yelled.

But it was Petras who looked at Aurelia with cold red eyes. “Just talk,” he spat.

“Well… It is the newcomer,” Aurelia said. “Uhm… She… She is a drow. And she says she is an alchemist, specializing in stuff having to do with blood. And, uhm… She might be able to help us. With the hunger that is.”

“Why the hells would someone do that?” Petras asked. “People don’t just help…”

“Yeah,” Violet agreed. “She is probably some sort of spy or something.”

“Actually…” Aurelia noticed her tail flicking again and wanted to catch it. Holding it with her hands, she continued. “Well, she… I think… I… Well, I think she has a thing for vampires or something.”

“What?” her siblings asked almost in unison.

“She…” But Aurelia did not get to finish, as someone clapped their hands.

“Alright, vampires, listen.” That was Ulma, who had now joined them, standing in front of the altar of the former temple. “As you might have already heard, someone new has arrived today. A drow traveler going by the name of Araj Oblodra. And I will tell you openly, that I do not trust her. I have spoken to her, and during our conversation she had lied to me several times. I am not entirely sure whether she is safe, though our situation is desperate, as you might agree. So, for now I have set her up in the ruined tower in the east of the forge.”

“And what is that drow gonna do about our desperate situation?” someone asked.

Ulma put her palms together and took a deep breath. “She says she is an alchemist specializing in blood alchemy. And this is the one thing I do believe her about. And she has offered to try and create for us a possible artificial source of blood – or a way to stretch out blood. However…” She put quite some emphasis on this word. “I do think her being here is quite predatory in nature. She seems to fantasize about vampires in a more… sexual way. And as such her aid is conditional.”

“So we are supposed to fuck her?” Yousen asked. “Figures.”

“No, actually…” Aurelia interrupted. “She… Well, she wants to be bitten. That is what she asked for.” She knew her voice was too quiet to be heard by everyone assembled. So, she tried to speak up. “I… I have already said I will do it. I will bite her, if that is what she wants.”

“Well, why would she want to be bitten?” someone from the crowd asked.

“Probably because that’s just something weird folks have a thing for,” one of the undead Gur children replied.

“I mean, we are hungry,” someone else interjected. “So I do not see the problem.”

“If anything someone might just accidentally kill her,” yet another person said.

“Have you smelled her though?” Yet another person said. “She smelled kinda really funky.”

“Look, man, I am starving. Right now I will take any blood.”

Ulma sighed. “Children!” That was the way she tended to address them. Even those of them like Yousen, who were almost double her age. “I understand that you are hungry. But I am still trying to protect you. And this person…”

“Ulma, please,” Aurelia replied. “I said I will do it. I will, truly. I…” She moved out from between her siblings, stepping forward. “I… I do get that our situation is bad. And I… I just don’t want anyone else to die or leave or leave and then die. I just want…” She was still holding her tail, feeling her muscles inside it tense inadvertently, as Ulma looked at her.

“Aurelia, child,” the matriarch said. “I do get your desire, but… I am not sure whether it is wise. You do not deserve to be used by yet another person.”

“I…” Aurelia lowered her gaze. “I do not care, Ulma. I just want… I want things to get better. For everyone. This… This entire thing had been hard enough, right?”

Ulma looked at her with this sad expression in her eyes. Pity. Aurelia had seen it there quite a few times before. And maybe it was the right emotion. Sixty years of rape and torture were probably deserving of pity, if nothing else. But more than anything Aurelia hated to feel helpless, to not be the person making her own decision. Because for so long that was all she had been. Just a puppet controlled by Cazador.

“Please, Ulma. Just… Let me do it. I… I can control myself, I promise. And… And then we will see whether that drow really can help us, you know?” Because right now they needed help. They needed someone other than the Gur to help them. Otherwise they would not survive. And Aurelia… She wanted to live. She really wanted to live.

Chapter Text

Araj knew her face was flushed, as she arranged her things in that rather run down tower on the outer edge of the settlement. Her heart was racing, and had she been entirely sure that she was not watched, she might have even danced. Oh, she could not believe how well this had gone! She was allowed to stay, and maybe she would soon be bitten by an actual vampire!

Just a few hours she had chided herself for her rather childish decision to come here. It was all her deeper desires, not anything rational. She was not doing this to serve Lolth, even though she knew she should do penance before her goddess for the sins of her mothers. But right now she just could not think about anything like that. No, right now she could not help but think about the vampires having settled here.

And that vampire girl. A tiefling.

Admittedly, she did not think too highly of tieflings. After all they were of human heritage, and at the same time just the living, breathing evidence for humanity’s hunger for power. A hunger that made them deal with the devils way too often.

But, well, Araj probably could not judge on that end.

She giggled, and felt herself blushing over this once more. She was now really behaving childish. But how was one supposed to act when one’s dearest desire was made to become true?

She looked at the tools of her trade, deciding that this looked fine for now. She had seen an old bed further up. Given that it had been Sharrans living at this place originally, the beds here were made of stone, but with her bedroll she would be able to make due.

Hence, she took her bedroll from her stuff, as well as the additional blanket she had brought. One of the few things she had from her mother still – though she knew better than to be sentimental about it. With those things under her arms she moved up one floor, finding that run down bed. She rolled out the bedroll, then unfolded the blanket, before sitting on the side of the bed to look out the spy-window in the wall.

There was an underground ocean far bellow her current position. The water being ink black and almost melting into the darkness, even for her drow eyes.

Beautiful. Yes, there was a certain beauty in this. The pristine beauty of the Underdark, which she had missed for so many years.

The voice from downstairs made her jerk. “H-hello? Ms. Oblodra?” The voice was clearly unsure, as the owner stepped into the tower.

The vampire girl!

Araj smiled, pushing her hair back. Then she gave her own voice a smooth tone. “Yes, please? I am upstairs.”

“O-okay,” the voice answered and soon enough there were careful steps on the rundown stairs. Not soon after the tiefling vampire stepped into light of the fireplace. Her red face was pale – as it was to be assumed with a vampire – but her cheeks were full. Had she not looked this insecure, one might have called her pretty, her black hair flowing open down to her chin. “I came here to… Well… Uhm… We talked about it. And you can stay, if you help us. And… Well, if you help us, I will drink from you. If that is what makes you happy. I… I will even offer my other… services.” She lowered her gaze.

It took Araj a moment to understand. She frowned. “No. No. You got this all wrong. This… is purely because… I need to know. What it feels like. The blood – my life’s blood – being sucked to be consumed by someone else.”

At this the girl frowned as well, but then she sighed. “Sure. I… I will… As I said, I will do it.”

Araj smiled. “Wonderful.” She could not help but put her hand onto the girl’s cheek. “You are a cute little vampire, aren’t you.”

There was something dark flickering in the girl’s eyes at this. “Let’s… Let’s just do this.”

“Gladly.” Araj tilted her head to the side to show off her neck, closing her eyes in anticipation.

The vampire was a bit unsure, as she approached, taking Araj first by the shoulders, before gripping the back of her head with one hand.

Araj could feel the girl’s breath against her skin, and then the surprisingly soft pain of two pointy fangs burying themselves into her skin.

By Lolth, she had not been certain what she had expected from this. But she was sure of one thing: This was better. A shiver ran down her back, as the vampire took her first sip of the blood. And oh, Araj could feel it. She could feel her blood leaving her body, bringing with it a feeling both of the hot and the cold. A wonderfully enticing feeling.

Her heart was beating faster, as the girl took her second sip. A gentle feeling of pleasure was filling Araj’s body as she did. Almost as if this was made to entice her further. Maybe it even was. It made her want to nestle up closer to the girl. Slowly she lifted her arms, wrapping them around the girl.

Another breath against her neck, then the tiefling girl took her third sip. This one feeling so wonderfully, that Araj could not help an elated sigh. Oh, this felt wonderful. Like a soft caress. Like what she imagined Lolth’s embrace to feel like.

Then, however, the girl carefully untangled herself from Araj, breathing slowly. Her face was distorted into a grimace. “Your blood… It’s sour. Like unripe lemon.”

For a moment Araj was still reeling from the experience. The experience that she had been anticipating for more than a century. She breathed heavily, as she stumbled backwards until she was sitting on the bed. Closing her eyes, she took a few more breaths, before looking back at the girl. “Well, there might be some members in the line of my ancestry that will not be quite expected there.” She smiled. “Thank you, sweet one. This was better than anything I might have ever imagined.”

The girl looked at her for a long moment, before she said. “Aurelia. My name is Aurelia. I prefer it about being called ‘girl’.”

Araj still kept the smile on her lips. “Of course, Aurelia. I did by no means want to offend you.”

“It’s alright,” Aurelia said, though her voice told Araj clearly that she was holding it against her. Then she sighed. “Is this… enough of a payment for now?”

“Yes, Aurelia,” Araj replied. Frankly, she felt almost like fainting, her heart still beating so strongly in her chest. “Though we might repeat this someday soon.”

Aurelia forced a smile. “Of course. Is it… Is it okay for me to go?” Her tail was twitching anxiously from one side to the other.

“Yes,” Araj replied. “I had a long day of travel, so I might well rest soon.”

“Alright.” The girl’s smile was rather stiff. “Rest well then, Ms. Oblodra.”

“Please,” Araj said. “Call me Araj.”

At this Aurelia said nothing. Rather she turned towards the stairs and made her way down.

Araj just sat there, waiting to be certain that the girl was downstairs and had left the tower. Then she let herself fall completely onto her bedroll, grinning widely. She knew quite well that she was grinning, but what could she do? This had been everything she had ever dreamed about. Everything and still a bit more.

With one hand she touched the still lightly bleeding wounds on her neck. It weirdly did not really hurt. Though she had read about it. How vampire salvia had a numbing and at times aphrodisiac effect on most victims.

Oh. This was just wonderful! The most wonderful thing that had happened to her in a long time.

Bitten by a sweet little vampire girl. Even if it was only for a few sips. But oh, it had been quite something.

Enough to once more pause her quest to restore her house and family’s name? Well, she knew for certain that her foremothers were most certainly cursing her right now. But… Well, she knew that her quest would be quite exhausting once she arrived in Menzoberranzan – she could allow herself this little reprieve, right?

Even though she was exhausted, it took Araj quite some time that night to fall asleep. She lied on that stone bed, looking up to the ceiling, thinking about the decisions that had brought her here. Stupid decisions, undoubtedly, and yet… Why could she still not stop grinning to herself?

As she finally fell asleep, the dreams coming for her were not making things better. She was dreaming of her mother and how they had once left the Underdark behind. She had been with her mother – and only her mother – for so long, that she barely remembered those other members of her family. She knew that when they had left Menzoberranzan there had been eight of them. Her grandmother, her two aunts, her mother, and her cousins. But one by one they had all died.

Her grandmother had always been the matriarch. The one who would hold long speeches about how wrong the other houses had been to banish them. So often she had made Araj and her cousins promise to exact their revenge on those who had wronged them. Those, who had pushed the House of Oblodra into the Rift. And of course they had promised. Of course they had had pride.

But in the end, it had been a wyrm who had gotten her grandmother. Even though the woman had barely been four hundred years old. And then everyone else had died as well.

It was because of this, that her mother had decided to leave the Underdark behind. To go up to the surface to find work – and find a way to continue their research. So often she had said that Araj would be the one to safe their family’s name. Because she was intelligent, having an almost intuitive understanding of alchemical components. And because Araj had never been bogged down by some petty ideas of moral rights and wrongs. Oh, her grandmother had made sure of that.

Still, her mother had died. Killed by an angry mob just a few years after they had arrived on the surface. But Araj had never doubted that her mother had been right. She had never doubted that she could do it – could restore the noble House of Oblodra.

Chapter Text

“Oh Aurelia,” her master whispered, running a hand over her cheek. An almost soft and loving gesture, yet it made Aurelia tremble with fear.

She wanted to retreat, to flee from this man, but her feet were like frozen in place.

“Tell me, girl,” he said now, “what did you do again?”

“N-nothing, master,” she whispered. “It… It was Astarion. I told you.”

Those red eyes narrowed, as they looked at her, and she could not even react quickly enough before he buried his fangs into her neck once more. “You are a devious little liar, aren’t you? So reliant on your brother to take the blame for you, aren’t you?”

“I… I am not lying!” she said. “Believe me, master. It was Astarion! He did it!”

The flat of Cazador’s hand met with her cheek the next moment, making her topple over. “Let’s try this again, girl!” Her master was screaming now, his voice a command that she could no longer withstand. “Tell me what happened!”

Tears shot into Aurelia’s eyes as she was cowering on the floor. She did not want to tell. She did not want to. Because she knew she would be punished. And she could not bear another punishment. “I am sorry, master,” she whimpered. “I… My tail… It did not listen… I… It was an accident. It was an accident that I broke that vase.”

Now her master’s shoe pressed down on her neck, forcing her fully onto the ground. “There you lie. Whimpering once more. Yet, you are also one of those, who seem to be unwilling to learn, aren’t you?”

“Please, master,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

“No,” Cazador said, his voice icy. “I only need to decide who it will be that gets to punish you today.”

Aurelia was panting as she woke from her sleep. She wanted to curl up into a ball and whimper, but she knew that if she did the others would notice. Her entire body was trembling in fear, even though she knew that Cazador was dead. He was dead. He would never come to harm her again.

Tears burned in her eyes, as she forced herself to get up.

She shared this dorm with several of the other spawn. After all, there was not enough space here to house all of them in separate rooms. Those Sharran cultists that had been living here before had slept in big dorms, so it was what they were doing as well.

Quietly, Aurelia put on her sandals and pulled over a leather jacket, before she snuck out of the dormitory. After all sneaking was, what they had been made good at, right? Cazador’s seven spawn, made to serve him in any way.

She wiped away some of her tears, as she walked along the corridor. While her legs were naked underneath her nightgown, it was not as if she could really feel cold. Her body was very much immortal in more than one way. She knew, because otherwise Cazador’s and Godey’s torture would have killed her a long time ago.

She knew, where she was headed. Her little hideout in this big place. Her path led her along several corridors, then outside to the small harbor, and finally over a thin rock path out to an alcove. A little beach on the shore of the Underdark ocean.

Aurelia had found this place about two tendays after they had settled here. It was not as if she was the only one to know about it, but most of the time it was a good place to be alone.

She lit a bit of wood with a cantrip, before settling into the greyish sand to look out onto the black water.

While she dared to put her feet into the icy water, she never had dared to bathe in it. For one, as her vampiric nature made her mistrust the water. But also, because she did not know what kind of creature might linger in that inky black.

Cazador was still haunting her in her dreams – and she knew the same was true for her siblings. It was to be expected, maybe, given how many years the old vampire had stolen from them. They had all suffered because of him.

Pulling her knees closer to her body, she leaned her forehead against them.

The seven of them… They had all been tortured at some point. By Godey, yes. At times by Cazador himself, too. She still remembered the needles. A hundred needles of a silver alloy he had pierced their bodies with. At times he had forced them to do it themselves.

And Godey? Godey would pierce their wrists with that old hook and pull them up, before proceeding to torture them – at times for days.

Yet, in between all that torture Cazador had so often wanted them to play “happy family”. They were supposed to call each other siblings, while he had called them his girls and boys, his sons and daughters. While he made them prostitute themselves, and sustain themselves on animal blood.

Worst of all: Nothing of it could be undone. Even with Cazador dead, those scars edged onto their backs remained. As did those memories…

She wished, it was different. She wished, she could forget. To go somewhere else and start anew…

It was funny. When she had first met Cazador, he had been so charming. His promise of a family had been so seductive to her – given she was a tiefling child born to human parents. While her parents had never outright abandoned her or pushed her away, she had always been the odd one out to her family. The dirty little secret that was not spoken about. When she had been a teen, she would run away for several days and everyone had seemed so disappointed, when she had come back.

More tears ran down her cheeks, as a little sob shook her shoulders. She let herself fall onto her side, wrapping her tail around herself.

The truth was, that she did not want to cry about it anymore, yet the tears would not stop coming. Because she was the weak one, the weakest link in the chain.

She must’ve cried herself to sleep, given that the voice speaking to her woke her. “Aurelia?”

Opening her eyes, she found Tianna standing on the tiny beach next to her. One of the “conquests” that had been turned and scarred. A human woman with ebony hair. Aurelia remembered her having those beautiful blue eyes – though now those eyes were red like the eyes of everyone else.

“W-what are you doing out here?” Aurelia asked, her voice hoarse.

“I could ask you the same,” Tianna said, sitting down next to her. She was wearing a proper dress, rather than the nightgown Aurelia was still in. “Did you spend the night here?”

“I… I couldn’t sleep,” Aurelia muttered. “What are you doing here?”

“Just having a moment alone to myself. Well, that was the plan at least.” Tianna looked at her.

“I see.” Aurelia sat up again, once more pulling her legs close. The fire she had made last night had burned down, though Tianna was carrying a torch she now put into the sand.

For a long moment silence fell between the two of them, then Tianna sighed. “Wow, you just radiate an aura of misery.”

“I am sorry,” Aurelia whispered, making the other woman sigh.

“Don’t always apologize for everything.”

At this Aurelia said nothing. She did not know what to say after all. Her entire life she had been made to apologize for both things she had done, and things she had not.

“Had a nightmare?” Tianna finally asked.

With a sigh Aurelia simply nodded.

“I can only imagine how it is for you. Like you and the other three.” Tianna looked at her. “I still wake thinking I am in that cage. But… I mean… At least he did not torture us – at least not past the scars.”

To this, too, Aurelia did not reply. Not in words at least. She looked out onto this ocean – the surface as flat and reflective as a mirror. Just black water seemingly stretching out endlessly.

She did not really know what to reply. Because Tianna was right in a way, of course. But starvation without the release of death was torture too – and it had been Aurelia’s fault that this woman had lived through that.

Tianna looked at her. Aurelia could literally feel that gaze lingering on her. Then the other vampire once more spoke: “So, that alchemist might be able to create a way to feed us?”

“That’s what she says,” Aurelia replied. “I don’t know if it is true.”

“And she wanted to be bitten in turn?”

Aurelia once more just nodded.

“A weirdo, eh?”

Aurelia sighed. “I don’t know. Though her blood… It was weird. Sour. Incredibly sour. Like acid.”

“I wonder what sentient blood is supposed to taste like,” Tianna said, making Aurelia shrug.

“I doubt it is that different from animal blood,” she replied. “It is blood, right?”

“Right…” Tianna raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess in that case we should thank you for your sacrifice.”

Another sigh came over Aurelia’s lips. “I just hope… I just… I hope things still can get better. Somehow.”

Chapter Text

The architecture of the former temple was impressive. Araj had to admit this. While it was nothing compared to what she remembered from Menzoberranzan, it was still one interesting piece of art.

She did not know much about the history of this place, other than it had been mostly human worshippers of Shar, who had built this place. It was natural in a way for them to be drawn to the Underdark, a place born from darkness.

Ironically, though, Araj had to assume the original builders of the place would be shocked to see the state the place was in now. While the vampires were vampires, they were surface dwellers in their hearts, longing for light and the more comfortable things in life. They did not really appreciate the darkness of the world below.

As such the corridors in the fortress were lit by enchanted torches, and there were places in which someone had tried to get plants to grow with the help of magic. Surface plants, of course, given these people undoubtedly could not see the beauty of the mosses and mushrooms growing in the depth of the Underdark.

Araj was trying to explore the place just a bit, trying to get a sense of the place she would spend at least a few tendays in. Just a two or three tendays, she reminded herself, as she had still important business to attend to.

The temple had quite a few levels, though parts of it had been destroyed. While the rubble had been cleared out – as well as probably some dead bodies – it was not hard for Araj to tell what had happened here.

For some reason this fort had at some point be attacked by forces of the hells, and that especially curious part of her could not help but wonder why. There was a story here, right below the surface, that just wanted to be explored.

She wished there was someone here to ask, but so far the people – both Gur and vampires – met her with a certain mistrust. Nothing that she was not experienced with of course. She didn’t mind. Not as long as she got what she wanted, and right now it seemed that the tiefling vampire girl was trying to keep her happy.

Lava was flowing through the entire temple. Something one especially witty engineer had used to keep the entire structure warm. And from what Araj had heard, there was also a forge underneath the rest of the temple. Well, naturally there was. After all this place was called Grymforge.

Right now Araj was exploring the upper levels, though. She was not using a torch. After all she was a drow, created by Lolth to live down here in the Underdark. Her eyes saw perfectly well in the dark, even without those lights the surface dwellers were so attached to.

She wondered what kind of ingredients for her alchemy she might find within the complex. She had already seen some metals and crystals occurring on the lower levels. And she had to assume that within the lava some interesting things might be found if properly treated. Sadly, the vampires and Gur had done away with a lot of moss and mushrooms that had probably once grown here. Again, they just could not appreciate it. Though Araj was rather certain that, if she went to walk along the shore of the underground ocean, she might find quite a few interesting ingredients.

It was a thing she would have to try during the next few days.

If things became desperate, she might also explore some rumors that she had heard. Rumors said, that if one sailed on the ocean for a bit, one would come across a magician’s tower. Some wizard lady had dwelled there, folks said, and she had apparently had quite the collection of mushrooms and fungi. An option worth exploring, Araj reminded herself.

For now, though, she tried to find out what was hiding further up the temple. The corridors here were in a rather unsafe state, which might explain why nobody else was here. Even now – probably decades, if not a century after that attack had happened – the stink of the hells seemed to linger in the cracks of the wall.

Then Araj heard something.

She paused, listening. It was a sort of clacking sound. A sound able to stir a distant memory in her mind.

She opened the bag she had been carrying, getting out a flask. Just to be prepared. Yet, her heart was racing not with fear but with a sort of anticipation.

With two gulps she emptied the bottle, feeling the magic of it spread through her body. Then she moved ahead.

What had been a simple clacking sound before, read as a voice now. “Children? Children? Where are you, my children?” A female voice, deep and mellow.

Araj found the right door. The door behind which the owner of the voice had to be resting. She took a deep breath, opening the door.

Behind it, she found, what she had expected. A big, giant spider sitting in its net. While the wall of the temple was gone here, the spider had built a rather cozy replacement there. Her legs were long and hairy, though one of it was missing the lower half. Just as the spider was missing five eyes, with the remaining three being milky and blind.

“Children?” the old spider asked. “No.” It hissed. “You are wrong. Who are you?”

“A child of Lolth, mother,” Araj replied, going down to one knee.

“Lolth?” The spider’s mandibles rubbed against each other. “A child of Lolth? One of the deep elves?”

“That, yes, mother,” Araj said, looking at the old spider with veneration. She had not seen such a spider – an old and mighty one – since the day she had left the Underdark. While some of Lolth’s spiders lived on the surface, they rarely got a chance to grow this old.

A shiver ran through the spider and her net, then she moved a bit towards Araj. Two thin legs with forked ends were feeling for Araj, were smelling her, she realized. “Your scent… It’s wrong. Are you really one of Lolth’s children?”

“I am mother, I swear,” Araj replied.

“Then what is this smell?”

“I am an alchemist, mother,” Araj said. “That is probably what you smell. My alchemic creations.” The lie came easily over her lips, yet she could feel a burning sensation right where her stomach was. Wasn’t it bad enough that the vampires could smell it? Now the spiders were smelling it as well?

“I see.” The spider retreated a bit further into her net, clearly considering her situation. “What are you doing here, child? Lolth had never laid claim to this realm. It’s always been a home to surface dwellers and those dirty duergar…” She was hissing that last word. “Now there are those undead creatures living here. So, so many of them. So, so many…”

“I am travelling, mother,” Araj said. “Trying to advance my alchemic knowledge. I specialize in the Sanguine Arts, as such the vampires living here are of special interest to me.”

“Driven by curiosity, I see…” The spider settled properly in her net, her mandibles still rubbing against one another. “It was curiosity too, that made most my children leave, did you know? Curiosity and fear.”

“What happened?”

“A while ago some duergar came here.” Once more the spider spat the word out. “They were following a new god. They called this god the Absolute, and some of my children wanted to follow that new god.”

“Oh.” The syllable simply escaped Araj. After all, she had been there in Moonrise Towers herself, living among those crazed cultists. Mostly because at the moment they seemed to be the most useful to her plan.

“You heard of the Absolute?” the mother spider said, now seemingly quite interested.

“Yes, mother,” Araj replied. “But… She was slain a few months ago. It… Well, it turned out she was an Elderbrain manipulated through some ancient Netherese magic.”

Another shiver ran through the spider, making the entire net vibrate with it. “Illithids. Why is it always illithids in these parts?”

Araj shrugged, well aware that the spider could neither see nor sense it. “What happened to your children?”

“Ah.” Something that was almost akin to a sigh left the spider’s body. “The Absolute wanted them to fight in her name. They grew afraid and left for Menzoberranzan, hoping they would be venerated there. Only few of my children remained with me. Those who never gave into the Absolute and her false promises.”

“And you have been living here the entire time?” Araj asked.

“For decades,” the spider replied. “I have seen people come and leave quite a few times…”

“I see.” Araj got up, carefully looking around. “Is there anything I can do for you, mother?”

“Hmm…” Again the mandibles were grinding. “If you see my other children, tell them to come for me. I need them. I need them and their blood.”

“Of course,” Araj said. “I can look for them, mother.” She smiled and bowed.

“Are you leaving now, strangely smelling child?” the spider asked.

“Yes,” Araj replied. “Looking for your other children, remember?”

“Yes.” The spider once more settled there in the center of her net. “Yes, I assume that is for the best. It’s for the best…”

Araj hesitated for a moment, but then she turned to leave. She was not lying about this, though. She was going to look for those other spiders. After all, the venom of these spiders was something, that she had not gotten her hands on in quite a while.

Yet, she had to fight down a frustrated sigh. Because she knew that no matter what she did, nothing would change the fact that her blood was tainted – tainted to actions of her ancestors, that she had never gotten a chance to influence.

But no matter what this meant, she also knew it was not her place to question her ancestors. Her foremothers had always acted in the best interest of the family, trying to advance their standing within Menzoberranzan. And it was Araj’s responsibility to make sure that their actions had not been in vein – that the House of Oblodra would once more rise.

Chapter Text

The thing Aurelia missed most in regards of Baldur’s Gate was the feeling of wind on her skin. Even after Cazador had turned her, she had enjoyed to sit by the docks at night and feel the breeze brought along with the river. Down here in the Underdark, there was rarely ever a breeze, though. Even sitting by the little harbor, she could feel barely any movement in the air.

A part of her wished to go back up to the surface, but if she was fully honest, she knew that it was not a place she did belong to. This was right now the closest thing she had ever had to a family, to a real home, and she would be silly to give it up.

Once more she found herself wondering what might have happened to Astarion and Leon since she had last seen them. She wanted to believe they were both still alive, were doing good for themselves.

Back on the day that Cazador had died, Astarion had been surrounded by other people. His friends, she wanted to assume. And there had been that human man by his side, too. Maybe Aurelia had been just imagining things, but her feeling had been that Astarion had been close to that man. There had been something about the way he had leaned against him, that had spoken of a very tender kind of trust. The kind of trust she did not really know.

She paused her thoughts, as she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It took her a moment to actually focus on it. A bright spot up on one of the cliffs to the side of the temple complex.

Aurelia got up from the floor she was sitting on, further concentrating on the bright speck. Then she realized what it was. The drow. Somehow climbing along the cliffs.

It had been five days since the drow had arrived and so far she had mostly spend her time stalking through the complex and the area around it – not really doing any alchemical experiments or something of the sort.

Frowning to herself, Aurelia made the decision within a moment. She knew how to get up to those cliffs. There was a tunnel that was leading there – a tunnel with a long, long staircase at the end. Maybe she was being too mistrustful or too impatient, but Aurelia could not help herself. She darted over to the entrance of the tunnel, making her along it and up the staircase.

Just as she emerged from the manmade structure, she found the drow resting standing to the side of the cliff, looking out onto the lake below.

“What are you doing here?” Aurelia asked, making the woman jerk.

“Oh.” She turned around to Aurelia. “It’s you.” Then a seductive smile appeared on the woman’s lips. “Here for another bite?”

Aurelia pressed her lips together, trying to evade answering it. So instead, she repeated her question. “What are you doing here?”

For a moment the drow’s purple eyes watched her with a hint of disappointment, but then the drow woman sighed. “I am simply looking for ingredients. After all you people managed to scrub the temple itself fairly clean.”

“We try to not live in a dump,” Aurelia noted sourly.

“A well-nourished colony of fungi does not make a place a dump, my dear.”

At this Aurelia did not know what to reply. “So, you are not out here to inform some other drow of what you found inside?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“There are some who say, that you are a drow spy. That the drow will try and lay claim to the fortress.”

This claim was answered with a laugh. “What?” the woman asked again.

“You heard me,” Aurelia grumbled.

Still the woman was chuckling. “Please, dear. I will openly admit that for a place build by human hands there is a certain charm to it, but what interest should my kind have for such a place? We have our own fortresses down here, our own cities. Things that melt harmoniously into the landscape, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.” She looked down at those statues of Shar that rose from the waters in front of the temple.

Again Aurelia found herself frowning. Somehow this all sounded quite like an insult to her. For a moment she pursed her lips, but then she decided to go with a different line of questioning. “So, you really just came here because you have a fucking vampire kink?”

“A what?” At her words the drow was in disbelieve.

“Well, it’s what it is, right? Some sort of messed up vampire kink.” Aurelia crossed her arms.

“It is not a kink, dear,” the drow replied. “It is scientific curiosity.”

“Right.” As if Aurelia was going to believe that. She had seen the woman’s reaction to the bite.

“Really, sweetheart, you have your mind in a gutter.”

Aurelia was still frowning, but evaded her gaze. “I told you before. I have a name.” She had been called ‘dear’, and ‘sweetheart’, and ‘my girl’ way too often during her life. By Cazador. By, well, her conquests.

For a moment the drow looked at her with a strange gaze, but then she sighed. “Of course. Aurelia. Right?”

“Right,” Aurelia replied. She found her tail flicking from side to side once more. “So… How did you even hear about this. About us, I mean.”

“I was travelling back to Menzoberranzan, when I heard stories about vampires having settled here. And I was simply too curious to not check it out.”

Aurelia shot her a side glance. “You are aware that other vampires might as well have killed you, right?”

“You assume that I cannot defend myself,” the drow said.

“Well, it is one of you and more than six thousand of us. Even if you were the most amazing fighter, I doubt that you could do much to defend yourself. Which is the reason why everyone thinks you are a spy, right? Because who would be so stupid to run in here without some backup waiting somewhere nearby?”

“Excuse me?”

“If we were not as desperate as we are, we might as well have killed you,” Aurelia muttered.

The drow was still pursing her lips at this, but did not answer.

A silence fell between them, that quickly grew awkward as it lasted. So, in the end it was another question by Aurelia that broke the silence rather forcefully. “So, you are from Menzoberranzan? The big drow city?”

She did notice the short pause that followed before the drow answered. “Of course. Most of our kind live there, no? Our glorious city.” She sighed.

“I heard some rather grim stories,” Aurelia noted.

“Grim?”

“How there are slaves being kept and how male drow are not worth a lot. And how a lot of drow love to play politics in a rather cut-throat manner.”

At this the drow scoffed. “So?”

“Well, that sounds like many things, but not a nice place,” Aurelia says.

Another scoff answered. “Which is such a surface thing to say.” Now the drow crossed her arms as well. “But I guess I cannot expect one like you to understand the beauty of it. See, I know the surface world. I do know your silly ideas that are never more than ideals. My kind has been created by Lolth, beautiful mother of the Abyss. It was Lolth, who gave us the powers we wield. It was Lolth in her glory, who did recognize how little worth the male sex has to offer. They are less adept in magic, right? And unable to bear children in most cases. Something the other gods very much always failed to see.”

“So, drow males are… what?”

“Slaves, for the most part. Made to serve the leaders of their houses. Often with their bodies. In one way or another…”

Aurelia shivered at those words. Oh, she knew what it was to be made to ‘serve someone with one’s body’. It was one of the other nightmares she kept having. The dream about endless hands on her skin, taking her in. And she did not even know how to act, given that the actual owners of those hands, well… They were here, right? Most of them were here.

She could feel the purple eyes of the drow on herself, as the woman shook her head. “As I said, I do not expect you to understand.”

Somehow the scoff escaped Aurelia, before she could stop herself. “I am the one who doesn’t understand? Right. As if you have even the slightest idea of what it is to be used. To ‘serve someone’.” She turned her back on that woman, who was silent for a moment, before grunting.

“Of course I don’t understand,” she said. “I am one of Lolth’s chosen children, the soon to be head of my house. Why would I understand something like that?”

Aurelia shot her a look over her shoulder. “Maybe because it would make you into a somewhat decent person.” With those words she went back into the direction of the stairs, wondering why she had come here in the first place.

Chapter Text

The man was twitching, as Araj put the needle in, making her groan. “Hold still. It’s just going to be a bit of blood.”

She was not answered. Not with words at least. Instead there was a rather angry gaze directed her way. A gaze that told her maybe more than she needed to know.

The man was a great-nephew of Ulma’s, and had been ordered to donate some of his blood for Araj’s research. But just like the other Gur it was not as if he trusted Araj in any way. Nobody did. Of course not. Because she was a drow, and because she had come here for her own reasons. That, and the simple fact that they were stupid surface dwellers, whose opinion really did not need to concern her.

She drew out a full vial of the blood, before pulling the needle out. “There,” she said, not without some bitter sarcasm. “Against your own expectations you are still alive.” She pressed a cloth against the small wound in his arms. “Now hold this.”

The young man frowned, but did what she said. “Now, what are you going to do with it?”

“I am going to find a way to make it last,” she simply replied, shooting him a rather condescending smile. “Despite what you people think, I am a woman of my word.” She swirled the vial in her hand, the red liquid rich and beautiful.

“Right,” the Gur replied, as he got up from the chair. “Then I can go.”

“You can go,” she replied. “I do not require further assistance for now.”

Of course, she was not entirely honest. Because in the end she had no concrete plan for this so far, given there was this minor issue: While she knew probably more than most mortals about vampires, she still did not know what exactly it was about the blood they required. It was fairly clear that it was some sort of magical property, rather than a nutritional one. After all, it was absolutely possible to imitate the nutritional properties of blood with the right mixture of herbs and fungi.

It was something that had to be inherent to blood – but that would work with any sort of blood. After all, vampires could sustain themselves on the blood of animals or monsters, if they had to. Even though all her sources said that vampires would always prefer the blood of sentient creatures over that of any other living being.

The blood itself did not need to come from a living creature. Contrary to that book she had once read in her younger years, vampires could drink from the dead and not suffer any repercussions. They also could keep blood. As long as it was not congealed, it would give them about the same nourishment it would give if drunken directly from the veins.

But this left the question: What was the magical property they needed from the blood?

Among researchers, there was the theory going around, that it was not blood they consumed, but life or some sort of life-force. But again, then they should not be able to drink from the dead. So that was not the probable cause, was it?

Araj sighed with some pity. If those darn vampires were at least a bit more willing to talk to her… She had so little to go on, given that most vampires kept their inherent traits a secret. After all, being a real vampire was all about power. Real vampires were not that different from the drow, not based on what she knew about them. Playing politics all day, while trying to keep their secrets from the rest of the world.

The vampires here were only spawn, of course. And they would never amount to anything else, given that their sire was dead and so clearly none of them had even had the presence of mind to drink his blood.

Ah, it should be none of Araj’s concern. She would get what she desired – even if it meant that she had to figure this one out on her own.

She put the vial of blood onto a magic rune that would keep the vessel rotating. It would stop the blood from congealing for a while. At the same time she went over to her other things, most notably the bag of holding, she was using to keep her books in order.

She had memorized their positions well, not even needing to look into the bag to get out the right notebook.

It was one of her own. Some notes about the Sanguine Arts, about the things she had learned during her time in Baldur’s Gate.

For the most part she had never really bothered with the blood of animals. There was simply something more special about the blood of thinking creatures. But especially in the blood of those dealing with magic on a regular basis. It had been the key to her research in the end – even though the irony was not lost on her that it had been someone infected with an illithid tadpole, who had given her the right clue. Family habits, right?

Given that vampires consuming blood did not seem to make a difference between the blood of the different people – other than that weird obsession with virginity which some of them had – it stood to reason that the magical trait of blood the vampires relied on, was something all blood had in common.

In her research she had found a lot of tiny differences in the blood of the different species living on the land. Because there was a difference between the blood of dwarves, the blood of elves, and the blood of humans. Dwarven blood had some slightly magnetic properties, and Araj assumed it would make a good ingredient for certain enchantments. Elven blood, when added to any potion, would give it just a bit more potency – undoubtedly something left over from the Fey Wilds. Human blood worked rather well to substitute any other single ingredient when making potions. It seemed to have this inherent ability to just fill most niches.

All things most alchemists did not consider, of course, given they saw it as immoral to make anyone but themselves bleed for their craft. Araj meanwhile was not held back by such petty notions of morality.

She sat down by the desk and workstation she had constructed in her little tower, slowly scanning the texts she had written.

No, right now she did not know how to feed those vampires – but her bright mind should be able to figure it out. The ideal would be some sort of artificial concoction made from fungi, given how readily those were available. They could be even cultivated with some care. Thought it might not be possible, depending on the aspect of blood the vampires fed on.

It was silly. From what she had learned, some of those vampires had barely fed for a century, yet they were alive. Again something that went against all the research she knew. Nine months, funnily enough the exact time a human pregnancy took to develop. That was the time that according to the books a vampire could sustain themselves without feeding. Yet, the vampires were alive. Just a bit crazy at times. She had heard that some of them had to be still restrained to not cause further trouble.

She was not sure why. Because she was certain that it should not be that way. Maybe it had to do something with what their sire had done to them? Some sort of magic, maybe?

Sure, vampires were known to be hard to kill, given there was little in terms of injury that they could not regenerate from. But the consensus was that they would at the very least need blood to do it. Because everything needed a source of energy, even vampiric regeneration.

She turned the next page in her book. Some of the early experiments she had done in Baldur’s Gate. Offering healing potions to the poor in return for a vial of blood. She had learned quite a bit through it, especially given how many different vials she had accumulated this way.

By her theory – so she had to assume it was correct – blood was made up of five essences. Growth, regeneration, energy, soul, and one elemental essence, which in the case of most sentient creatures she had tried had always been earth. Soul was the ficklest of them all, given that it would leave any tincture within just an hour after brewing. It would leave the blood if not used quickly enough for the matter. Just an echo of “self”, so to speak. Though it was not even this. Because this essence was there even within those non-sentient creatures like animals.

Well, it did not matter. The scientific way to go about any of it would be to isolate each of the essence and feed it to one of the vampires. That way it could be tested which was the one that vampire-kind was feeding on.

Araj found the right page in her notebook, because this had been something she had done before.

The words of the tiefling vampire came to her mind once more – and she could not help but inadvertently scoff at them. She did not need to understand something as silly as “decency”. It was all dependent on the society you have grown up in, after all. No, those rules were arbitrary, if anything. At least the rules of the drow had been given to them by Lolth, a goddess!

No. Why would she waste her mind prowess on something like that, if she could do so much better? Like isolate the different aspects of blood with a few simple instruments. Was this not worth more than some made up “decency”?

Chapter Text

It was hard not to grimace as Aurelia was drinking the drow’s blood. It was just so sour, with a hint of bitterness. Lemons really were the most fitting comparison that came to her mind. Unripe lemons, in which those extreme tastes were even more concentrated.

In the end she had to let go of that neck, gasping for air. She was breathing slowly through her mouth, trying to control herself. The face of the drow meanwhile was in an expression of utter bliss.

Aurelia didn’t quite get it. She didn’t get what the drow got out of this. Because frankly, she was not even sure if it was a sexual thing or… well, something else. All she knew was, that this woman was clearly messed up in more way than one.

Now Araj opened her eyes. “You are wonderful,” she whispered, making Aurelia grimace.

“I am glad you enjoy yourself,” she muttered, turning away. There was a carafe with water, which she used to fill a mug, trying to wash out the taste. “Gods, what happened to your blood?”

The drow felt those two bite marks on her neck. With a droplet of her own blood on her fingers, she sat there. “As I said… Some of my ancestors did… Well, I am not of pure drow blood.” The way she said it was evasive, making Aurelia frown.

“Whatever did they fuck for this…” She stopped. “I mean, I think I would know if other blood was this…” She did not finish.

Araj smiled, and shrugged. Clearly evading to answer the question. “What do other people taste like?” she asked.

Aurelia filled up that clay mug again, still trying to wash away the taste. “I wouldn’t know, would I?”

This got the drow’s eyebrows to rise up. “What?”

“I never drank from another person before,” Aurelia said flatly. “Cazador would not allow it. For any of us. We fed of animals and monsters at times. But never a thinking creature.”

This got Araj to look at her, her forehead in a frown. “Why?”

Aurelia did not realize how aggressively her tail was whipping to the side, until the drow moved out of the tails way, making Aurelia evade her gaze. “Because he could. Cazador could. He controlled us. In every way he could imagine.”

She was at least aware of one thing: Those fucking rules were about nothing but control. It had always just been because he got some sick pleasure out of the control he had over them – just as he got pleasure out of torturing them. She was not sure whether he had ever felt pleasure about anything else in his pathetic life.

Again her tail was flicking, making her catch it once more. Stupid thing, that just did not want to be controlled.

Araj was still looking at her, those purple eyes now fixed on the tip of Aurelia’s tail, that was still twitching in her hands. “He turned everyone here, right? Every single vampire spawn here.”

“Yeah,” Aurelia said. Her fingers tensed inadvertently, until she could feel the pain at the tip of her pain. “Though we did not know that at the time of course… Because we did not know that all of them lived.” She went over to the window of the tower looking out onto that underground ocean, that was lying underneath them in perfect darkness.

There was a long pause, and almost Aurelia thought that Araj would drop the topic. But then she asked: “What was his deal?”

Aurelia turned her head just a bit. “What?”

“Seven-thousand spawn is a lot. Most vampires do not have more then maybe ten. Because each spawn is a potential rival for their power. So why did that Cazador create seven-thousand of you?”

Aurelia looked back at the inky blackness below. “Because we were meant to die. But because we were stupid, we did not realize a single thing about it of course.” She could quite literally feel the drow’s gaze in her back, making her sigh. “If you gotta know… He only had seven of us live with him. We were his ‘children’ and he sent us out every night to fetch him new prey. What we did not know that he did not kill those people we brought back. He turned them. Because he was preparing some sort of hellish ritual.” Again her tail wanted to twitch, but she held onto it. “Seven thousand souls to turn him into some sort of vampire god or something.”

“But he messed it up,” Araj said. “Right?”

“He got defeated,” Aurelia replied. “My… My brother. He… I honestly do not understand really what happened. Somehow he got loose from Cazador’s control. He found himself allies. And they… They saved us.” She wished she had a better understanding of what had happened back then. What had happened to Astarion, that had allowed him to go against Cazador. Maybe if he ever came back to them she could learn about it. But she would not hold it against him, if he never wanted to see any of them ever again. “It was them, who told us to go here. They… They did not need to save us. It would have probably been wiser, if they had not done it.”

“Wiser than letting seven-thousand vampire spawn run wild?” Araj chuckled. “Oh, no doubt.”

At this Aurelia did not answer. It hurt – but she knew it was the truth. Frankly, she did not understand, why those people had let them go. Why Astarion after everything had just let them live.

“So, seven of you are the main spawn of that Cazador,” Araj said. “Everyone else is…?”

“Mostly… conquests,” Aurelia muttered. She turned around to the drow once more to look at her. Because she perfectly remembered that talk they had had just three days ago. “It was his idea of how to do this. How to get us to bring in seven thousand souls. We were bait.” She spat that word. “But I doubt that you’d understand…”

“So, you, what? Went making pretty eyes at people?”

Aurelia did not answer. She did not look at the drow either. She couldn’t stand it.

“Wait. Does that mean you have slept with hundreds of the people here?”

Aurelia turned to go over to the stairs. “I am sure someone as much of a genius as you are, will be able to come to her own conclusions,” she simply said, feeling her skin crawl once more. “If there is nothing else, I… I would go back now.”

For a long moment the drow’s purple eyes were simply pinned on her. “Of course. I… I will dedicate myself to my studies once more.”

“Sure,” Aurelia muttered. She went over to the staircase, before hesitating. “Have… Have a good night.” She was not even sure why she said it, but she did not want to leave as a total asshole – even though it was probably what the drow deserved.

Then she went down the staircase to leave the old tower. Only once she was outside did she allow herself to breath once more.

Her tail was still twitching nervously. Stupid thing. So often it had gotten her in trouble, when those nervous twitches had destroyed a thing or another. Because she was weak and lacked any self-control. That was, what Cazador had always said.

Maybe he had been right.

Leon… She had not been like Leon. Leon, who had been the only one out of them, who had managed to please their master on a regular basis. But it also only had been, because he had some more motivation than any of them. Because of that daughter that he had failed to save in the end either way.

Aurelia stood by the small port of the forge, considering where to go next. In the end she climbed up those cliffs again, just to sit on their sides and look up onto the inky black water once more.

A part of her wondered, what would become of them. Of all of them. Because she was not kidding herself. If the gods – or fate – had any sense, they had been meant to die that day. Maybe not be sacrificed. But keeping them alive had been a stupid idea, one that she did not understand.

She wanted to live. She wanted to. But… What would a “life” for either of them even look like?

They were just what Cazador had created. Nothing else. The seven of them being too hurt, the thousands of others being too starved to be anyone more than that.

Aurelia did not even remember what her goals in life had been before Cazador had gotten her. What might it have been that she had expected from her life? She must have had a dream of sorts, right? Something she had aspired to. Maybe she had wanted to have a family of her own. A family that would not see her as a black sheep.

Or maybe she had wanted to go out there and have adventures. Or maybe…

She did not know. Because she barely remembered that person, she had once been. She remembered her family, yes. She remembered being the odd one out. But she did not remember herself. She did not remember Aurelia.

Chapter Text

away in a dungeon by the sound of it. They had been so completely hidden away, that only that old vampire had known they even existed. And frankly, Araj could not quite figure out how they were still alive. Because they should have starved. This she was sure of. They should have starved.

Once more she was out down the pathway to the north of Grymforge collecting some mushrooms, because she would need them for her experiment. She still was thinking about what the vampire girl had told her, though.

A vampire god. Ha! Men! That was the kind of thing that a man would come up with, wasn’t it? A big scheme to ascent to some sort of godhood – not realizing how each step he took was a step towards their own destruction.

Because Araj knew a few things about vampires. And she knew about how it was the fate of most vampires to one day get defeated by one of their spawn. Logically it did not make any sense to have so many spawn. Obviously one of them was going to kill the vampire master, right?

She wondered who it had been, though. The one who had defeated that Cazador.

Araj was not entirely certain, but she believed that at least some of those seven spawn that Cazador had kept around not all remained here. Only that she did not know where exactly they had gone. She had figured that outside of Aurelia three more of the vampires had been of this core group. The gnome, then the human vampire with the big attitude and the other woman – Viola. From what she had gathered the spawn, who had defeated that old vampire had stayed behind on the surface. But she did not know what might have happened to the two others. It was not as if anyone was eager to talk to her.

Generally speaking, though, these vampires were of course a depressed lot. It did not make Araj eager to talk to most of them for that matter. Most of them seemed to have this aura… There was no better word for it. They were veiled in it. This gloomy aura.

Aurelia was, too. Honestly, the vampire girl was a darn mess. Araj had seen it several times with her. That tenseness. Her tail was flicking back and forth all the time – and more than once Araj had seen how the girl had caught it, holding it in her hands. Now, Araj didn’t know many things about tieflings, but she was fairly certain that kind of stuff was not normal.

Really, Araj just did not understand it.  She didn’t understand most of it.

“Bait.” That was the word Aurelia had used to describe herself and the other of those core seven spawn. And while it had taken Araj a bit to figure it out, she was fairly certain she understood now.

That old vampire had banked on the fact that so many people were controlled by their most simple urges. The urge to eat, the urge to kill and the urge to fuck. Araj had read books about it, and it seemed that to so many those were the basic tenants they lived by. So, those seven had been sent out to seduce people into coming with them. After all, a lot of people stopped thinking straight as soon as the possibility of having their genitals stimulated came up – not that she had ever given into those kinds of bodily weaknesses.

Still, she had been around people enough to know that it was something that many kept in the forefront of her mind. Hells, when she had sold her potions in Baldur’s Gate, quite a few of those potions had been meant for sexual effects. Be it potions to induce lust inside of people, or potions that would somehow enhance the experience of a sexual encounter. Especially men were always keenly interested in those potions that would keep their cocks going for longer – once more confirming her thought on the inherent weakness of the male sex.

She sighed, as she finally made how the greenish glowing edelflowel mushrooms between two rocks in distance.

Climbing down from the path she had been walking on, she got out her knife.

Admittedly the thought that most of the vampires here had slept with at least one of those core seven vampires was kind of funny to her. It must’ve made this entire situation even more awkward, as it was developing.

While she did not really understand that hurt, she had seen in the vampire girl, even Araj was able to recognize it. There was this deep hurt inside the girl. Some of it originating with that old vampire – some of it elsewhere.

Araj should not mind all that. She knew that way too many people, especially among the surface dwellers, got hung up with those emotions. But maybe it was simply a blind spot for Araj? A blindspot she had chosen for herself most certainly, but a blind spot never the less.

She had never indulged in any of those bodily pleasures. How could she? After all, she knew quite well that until the honor of her House was restored, no other drow would ever touch her – and it was not as if she would ever touch one of the surface dwellers.

Cutting through the stems of the mushroom, some of the juices kept running over her fingers. Juices that smelled strongly, even thought it was hard to describe the smell. Something old, that was the only word she could think of.

Normally she would use those mushrooms for a revitalizing potion, but for now she wanted to try and use the juice to make the blood last for longer.

The more she thought about it, the more she was actually surprised that nobody had done something like this before. After all, vampires did like to secure their own power – so frankly, it would have made sense for a vampire to try this before. Create a potion that would give them security against starvation. And Araj had to wonder, why it never had happened before.

She refused to believe that it was impossible.

Oh, she would have loved to do further research on one of those vampires. After all, there were seven thousand of them. It should be possible to take one of them and declare them a test subject, right? For the greater good or whatever. Preferably one of those, who had been starving in Cazador’s dungeon for so very long. Because there was no way around it: Those vampires should have died at some point. And there had to be a reason for why they were still alive.

But Araj was not stupid. Sure, she could be rough towards other people, as she did not see the need in false niceties and fake smiles. But she understood very well, that her remaining here and getting to do this research was very dependent on her not making too many enemies.

Ha. She was going to take any bet that among those many souls stolen away by Cazador, there were some massive assholes. She herself had met enough men of the surface world – the men, who did not know their place and thought that everything was here for their taking. So, really, who would really cry over one of them?

But right now… Every single piece in this play was in a very dangerously balanced position. The vampires might need her, but she was well aware that they might as well kill her.

So many rules that had not be written down. But rules that were in this play never the less.

Seven-thousand souls stuck in a limbo because of the power fantasies of one man. A power fantasy that had failed of course – as all of those fantasies held by men were doomed to one day…

Chapter Text

“Aurelia.” The voice made Aurelia jerk just a little, as she was sitting in one of the studies. She had been trying for at least an hour to distract herself by reading some old manuscripts being found here – not to a great success.

Still, seeing the drow here made her frown. “Why are you here?”

It had been sixteen days since Araj had arrived here – and for the most part she had kept in her tower, if she had not been stalking about in the landscape surrounding the former Shar temple.

“I have… something,” the drow said, producing a flask from her bag. It was filled with a liquid glowing in a gentle reddish orange. “The first attempt.”

Again Aurelia found herself frowning, as she took the flask from her. “Why show it to me?”

“Well,” the drow said, now sitting down on the stool in the room, “you are the one paying for it, are you not? It seemed… right for you to be the one to get to taste it.”

“You mean be your test subject,” Aurelia muttered.

Now it was Araj, who grimaced. “I did not mean it like this. Not this time.”

Aurelia did not answer. She did not really know what she could answer after all. Opening the cork of the flash, she smelled it, finding that it weirdly had this iron smell of blood, but also something else. A musky smell of sorts.

She hesitated, but then she drank a sip of the glowing potion, finding to her surprise that it felt warm in her mouth. A strange tingling sensation spread through her body, as soon as she swallowed it. It was hard to describe – and frankly, she was not entirely certain what was happening.

“How is it?” Araj asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Does it… satisfy that need?”

Aurelia shook her head. “I don’t quite know yet.” She drank another sip, being at least somewhat certain that it would not poison her. Then she looked at the flask. “I am actually surprised, that you… well, produced something.”

“Should I be insulted by those words?” Araj asked. Now it was her, who frowned. “I do understand that you do not consider me a very honorable person, but I am a woman of my word. We made an exchange and I am going to honor it to the best of my ability.”

“Why?”

“Because it is simply how I do conduct my business,” Araj replied, before smiling. “Also, it does not escape my attention, that so far this is a question that alchemical research has failed to address. There is no potion like this – and as such it would increase the honor of my House, if I was the one to solve the problem.”

Aurelia could not help but scoff. “The honor of your house?”

“Yes,” Araj replied. “The House of Oblodra.” There was something showing in her smile now. A certain bitterness.

Aurelia drank another sip. There was still this tingling filling her body. She was fairly certain that it gave her new energy – but it was not quite as clear whether it was satiating the hunger that was driving her kind. “So, you… what? You drow have honorable houses of nobility and then, you… what?”

“We increase the name of our House,” Araj said. “While smiting those, who stand in our way.”

Aurelia looked once more in the now half-empties flask in her hand. “Sounds absolutely lovely,” she muttered, her voice filled with sarcasm. “What a wonderful way to organize society. Have everyone backstab one another, while also enslaving half of the society, if not more.”

Araj made a strange sound. “Do you really think it is that bad?”

“What?”

“You are getting awfully hung up on our treatment of the men. Do you really think it is that bad?”

Before she could help herself, Aurelia found herself frowning again. “I… It is not as if I know a terrible lot about drow. But never would I ever endorse enslaving someone. Do you really not get that? Cazador made me his slave for sixty fucking years. I know exactly what it is for someone to think they own you. For someone to just… decide what you are going to be, what you are going to do. No matter what you want. No matter how much it is hurting you.” Her voice was trembling just a little.

Again her tail was twitching, but for once she did not mind it. “I do not know much about your society, but I know that taking someone’s personhood from them is a horrible thing to do. No matter the circumstance.”

“So, what about that old vampire. That Cazador?” Araj asked. “He was a man, wasn’t he?”

Once more Aurelia’s tail twitched from one side to the other. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that I was on the surface world enough to have seen it, you know? What happens, if you let the men run the world. With their lust for hunger and their inability to plan for a future. Just look at that old vampire. Creating seven thousand spawn and then being surprised that someone rose up against him? Really?”

“Because that is so absolutely a lack in awareness bound to one’s genitalia,” Aurelia replied sardonically.

“Well, that master of yours was a man, was he not?”

“Sure, he was. But he might as well have been a woman. Do you really think that there are no women striving for power? Do you really mean to tell me, that there is no megalomaniac drow woman somewhere in Menzoberranzan, plotting her own ascension and failing?”

“Women have the ability to think further ahead,” Araj insisted. “They get not blinded by power the way men are.”

“And you are saying that if this was true men do deserve to be made slaves over it?” Aurelia replied.

“Well, it is most certainly a more sensible thing than to let them run the world, like the people on the surface tend to do.”

Aurelia did not even realize, she was growling. “Do you even get, what you are saying?” she hissed.

“Obviously,” Araj replied, instinctively moving away just a bit. “It is not that hard of a concept to grasp.”

“It seems to be for you.” Once more the tail was hissing through the air, this time wrapping itself around the drow’s wrist. Had Aurelia been alive, her heart had probably been beating in her ears right now. As this, it was more like an aggressive whining sound filling her ears, as she drew Araj in close, the anger simply overtaking her. “You have no fucking clue, what it means to have everything fucking taken from you. You have no fucking clue what it is to be made a thing by someone. You have no fucking clue what it feels like to be used again, again, and again, and again just because someone has decided that they fucking own you and because of that get to decide what to do with you!” There were tears burning in Aurelia’s eyes, just as the drow tried to move away from her once more. “You have no idea what it is to fear every single fucking day, because you do not know whether the person who claims to own you might punish you for some shit you have or have not done.”

Araj’s breath was heavy now. Once more she tried to pull away, only to stumble and fall to the ground, her right wrist still being entangled by Aurelia’s red tail. “Yet, you still fail to see the obvious. It was a man who did that to you, and it was a…” She yelped, when Aurelia was suddenly over her, pushing her to the ground.

“And what?” she whispered against the tears now running over her cheeks. “You think any of it would’ve been better if it had been a woman doing it to me? Do you think it would’ve been any better if it had been a woman doing it to a man, maybe?” She was not really sure, what she was doing. All she knew was, that there was this anger inside of her. This anger, that simply wanted out. She wanted to claw at the drow, wanted to show her. “Or do you think this is not a thing a woman might do to another woman? Because let me tell you, it is.” Her claws found the drow’s neck, gripping it.

Obviously the drow tried to fight back, tried to get out of the grip right now, but for the first time in sixty years, Aurelia did realize something. She was… strong. If not anything, she was at least physically strong. She could overpower the drow easily, using her tail to press that right hand against the floor, while clawing at the woman’s throat.

“What do you think happened out there? In the sixty years I was made to be living bait? Do you really think it was just the men, who used me?” So easily she could rip open the leather vest the drow was wearing, her claws living bleeding marks on the obsidian skin. “You think it did hurt any less if it was a fucking woman? Or that my brothers have suffered any less?” Her tears were dripping down onto the drow’s dark skin, mixing with the blood, before rolling down and melting into the fabric of her clothes.

Meanwhile the drow was gasping for air, was trying to escape the iron grip. But she couldn’t, could she? She couldn’t. Because in the end Aurelia could easily overpower her. She could kill her, in fact. She might simply kill her right now.

Wasn’t it the drow, who wanted to be bitten? Who wanted to have her blood sucked. So, really. Was this not something she had chosen for herself?

Aurelia did not even notice the sourness of the blood, as she buried her fangs in the drow’s neck. She did not really feel anything but the anger, the hurt, and this strange feeling of triumph upon realizing how strong she truly was.

It had been the drow’s own fault, really. It had been her own fault.

“Aurelia!” the voice came from far away. “What in the nine hells are you…” Someone grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her away – or trying to at least. Only that it was not that easy. Only that she was not that easily taken.

Growling she kept latching onto the neck, kept drinking, as the person holding her yelled. “Someone! Someone, help!”

“What is…” Someone else came running. “Aurelia!”

It was strange, really. Aurelia was weirdly aware of the drow’s body right now. Of how hard the drow’s heart was beating against her chest. Of how she was struggling. She could feel the tenseness of the body. She could feel the single breaths. She could sense those little whimpers climbing up in the drow’s throat.

Then came the sudden pain, as someone caught her own left hand. As burning metal was pushed around it, making her howl.

Then a collar of metal was put around her neck, pulling her backwards, making her growl and howl in anger. “No,” she whispered. “No.” But someone pulled on that collar again, pulled her back, as the metal was burning her.

She grasped for the chain attached to it, trying to pull loose. “No!” They would not take this from her. They would not simply take her kill.

But the chain was burning her skin just as much as the metal of the collar and the cuff were. Then someone managed to catch her right hand as well, while all she could do was howl.

Chapter Text

The male grunted, as Araj’s grandmother jammed the needle up his arms. Even from her current position Araj could see that her grandmother was not gentle about it – but then again it was only a male, she was doing it on. One of the twelve males that had come with them, after they had left Menzoberranzan, and given that the uses of males were limited, this was probably one of the best things to do with them.

Araj was careful as she watched her grandmother – a drow woman of about fourhundred years – draw the blood. Even though their skin was dark, their blood was still red, as it trickled into the vial.

The male was part of her bloodline. Araj knew that. It also meant that the unique traits given to their bloodline might well be present in his blood as well. She did not quite know what that actually meant, but she knew it was part of the reason they had to leave Menzoberranzan those eight years ago.

It was unfair, wasn’t it? That they had been made to leave. For their experiments, as if any progress done in science could be a bad thing.

“Araj, child,” her grandmother said, making Araj jerk. She thought she had gone unnoticed in her little corner.

Right now they were living in a small cottage next to a chasm of the Underdark. Away from most things – but especially away from the other drow. The entire family clan – or rather what was left for it after they had been made to flee. So many of the others had died.

Araj had been sitting on the staircase leading upstairs. Hidden from her grandmother’s laboratory, but in a way that she could see it. Well, at least that was how Araj had perceived it.

Now she jumped up. “Yes, grandmother?”

“Come down,” her grandmother demanded. “You might as well help me, if you are watching already.”

For a moment Araj hesitated. “Yes, grandmother,” she then said, coming down the stairs. Her gaze flickered over to the male. If she was not mistaken one of her cousins, not that it really mattered, given he was a male.

“Give me that flask,” her grandmother demanded, pointing at the glass flask standing on the desk.

A bigger flask, but Araj was physically almost grown, easily able to pick up the flask like this. “What are you doing today, grandmother.”

“Leveraging our own blood,” her grandmother said, as she exchanged the vial that the blood was flowing into right now for the flask. She swirled the blood in the vial a bit, before putting it down onto the desk.

“Isn’t it a bit much?” Araj asked. “Even us… We cannot safely lose more than a pint of blood at once.”

“Don’t worry about it, child.” Her grandmother shot her a tired smile. “There is nothing the right potion cannot fix.”

Araj looked at the male, considering that he already looked a bit pale – as pale as one could look with a skintone as dark as theirs. “What are you trying to accomplish with the blood?”

“I do believe, that all blood has hidden properties,” her grandmother said. “All I am trying is to awaken them.” She sighed. “I will need a duergar subject sooner or later.”

“A duergar?”

“Yes, child.” Her grandmother shook her head. “There will be quite a few test subjects until this research will be done.”

Araj woke up to a room filled with the soft light of a fireplace. Her head was hurting – though not as badly as her throat. Instinctively she grasped for it, finding it bandaged. Only that she did not quite remember how it happened.

Thinking about it, this also was not her room in the tower. No, this was somewhere else.

The door was opened, and much to Araj’s surprise it was the old Gur woman, who entered the room.

The old woman looked over to her, the green eyes narrowing. “You are awake,” she noted, putting down the tray she had been carrying. “Took you long enough.”

Again Araj was feeling those bandages. She could feel that there were several wounds on her throat and neck, but still her memory was not quite back yet. Something had happened. She could tell that much. Obviously something had happened. But what?

She groaned, trying to speak and finding it nearly impossible. When she finally managed to produce a sound, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could answer me that,” Ulma said. “What was it, that you have given the girl?”

“The girl?”

“Aurelia. She attacked you. Presumably because of the potion you have given her.”

Potion? Aurelia?

Araj frowned, trying to remember. She did know where she was. Right. Grymforge. The vampires. She had not been able to resist this temptation. Maybe what had happened was Lolth’s punishment for her.

Aurelia… The vampire girl. The vampire girl who had bitten her. Right. Right… Bitten her.

Again Araj ran her hands over the bandages. Bitten. Aurelia had bitten her again. Had scratched her first and then bitten her. And this time it had seemed as if even the foul taste of Araj’s blood had not held her back. She had been like in a frenzy, might have emptied Araj, if others had not arrived.

Right. Yes. Slowly the memory was returning to her.

“What have you given her?” Ulma repeated her question from before, just as those memories were slowly sliding into place.

“The… the potion,” Araj said. “Well, my first… The first attempt. To make blood stretch out, that is.”

“And it sends a vampire into a frenzy, great.” The old human was talking sardonically.

Araj did not answer. She was slowly remembering, what had happened in that room.

If she was fully honest, she did not even know why she had wanted to test the potion out on Aurelia. It had simply felt right. But going over what had happened… They had talked – and it was, what Araj had said, that had made her angry, right?

Tears. Araj remembered those tears.

“I don’t think it was the potion,” she muttered. “I think it was… what I said.”

Ulma raised one of her eyebrows. “It was?”

Araj did not answer. Her memory was still mixed up, but she was rather sure it had been her fault. Of what she had said. Only that she did not understand. She did not understand what had happened. Not really. But she knew that it had been her words that had made Aurelia angry.

“Girl?” Ulma asked, making Araj blink.

“Yes, I think it is what I said,” she rasped, before wincing. “I need a proper potion to heal this, though.”

The human woman looked at her, and there was undoubtedly some judgement in her gaze. “We will see about this,” she finally muttered. Then she moved the tray she had been carrying before to the table next to the sofa that Araj was lying on. “For now you should simply eat something. And then…”

“There are normal healing potions in my tower,” Araj noted, making the human just smile.

“Oh, I know.”

There was no real day and night cycle in the Underdark of course. Because it was dark the entire day. Still, at some point the place calmed down, while Araj laid on that rather hard sofa in front of the fireplace looking up at the ceiling.

The entire time she had always wondered, what dying might feel like. Only slowly did the realization set in, that what had happened earlier had been maybe the closest she had ever come to dying. Interesting. An interesting experience.

Her fingers were still fidgeting with the bandages around her neck. The wounds were strangely itchy right now. Maybe they were getting infected.

Her memory of the talk she had had with the vampire girl was still shaky, but she was mostly certain that she remembered the core of it. How the vampire girl was angry about the fact that drow kept slave – that in fact most male drow were being kept as slaves. Yes, that much Araj did remember by now. Quite the emotional topic for the girl, it seemed.

Araj was lying on her side. By now there were only embers in the fireplace. Embers that were slowly dying. Araj knew, she should calm down her thoughts and find her way into the trance, but right now she could not.

Mostly, because she was confused. She just did not understand the anger she had seen today. Because she had been right, had she not? That old vampire had been a man, and he had acted like so many men of the surface world – men who did not know their place. Had it not been better, if he had been made a slave to serve someone sensible?

She sighed. No need to get that emotional about it.

Closing her eyes, she tried to drift into the trance once more – but again she could not. This time, because there was something else she noticed. A soft clicking sound she noticed. A clicking sound she recognized.

Her eyes looked over the walls and ceiling, until she found it. Those eight glowing eyes. Another one of Lolth’s spiders, though one not as big or old as the mother spider she had seen several days ago.

The spider was sitting in the corner of the ceiling, watching her. It was clicking, but without the right potion even Araj as a drow was unable to understand those clicking sounds. She had to wonder whether it was one of the old spider’s children.

She watched those glowing eyes, wishing she could talk with it. Because right now she wished there was one sensible person who understood her thoughts. After all, she knew she was right. The worldview she was following… It was what Lolth had given to them. The Spider Queen. The true goddess. It was simply that the surface dwellers would not understand it. Maybe they could not, given they had not been chosen.

The eyes were blinking. A strangely humanoid gesture. Then more clicking sounds filled the air, before the spider moved. It moved, vanished into the dark. Who knew where to.

Araj sighed. Maybe she should go looking for the spiders again. Maybe she should… Oh, well… Who knew what she should do? Because the truth was, that she understood perfectly, that there was no way for her to do right. There never had been. Not for someone like her, who had lost their place in the world for sins committed by those who had come before her. By sins done by people, she had not even gotten to know.

Chapter Text

Aurelia understood, why she was still tied up.

The Gur had those tools around for just cases like hers yesterday. Those binds that had been made to hold monsters, once used to slaughter vampires like her, but these days mostly used to help them control themselves.

She was alone in the room, too. Not to punish her, she understood that, but to help her calm down.

Even today her emotions would still start to boil again and again, and they wanted to take her over. They made her body writhe, while tears were streaming down her face. And there was just nothing that she could do about it. Because it was too many emotions. Too many conflicting emotions, too.

Whenever she was thinking about the things that drow had said, she would feel her anger bubbling up. But at the same time there was shame, too. Shame for having lost her temper just like that. For almost killing the drow, too. But yesterday… She really had wanted it. She had wanted to kill the drow in that moment, because that vile woman did not even try to understand.

But there were other emotions, too. Emotions that she could not fully evade. There was this sadness, that would overwhelm her again and again. A rather hard to describe sadness, mourning so many things – but most of all the life she had never gotten to have. The life that she would never have, because Cazador had taken it from her.

She was a vampire. And she would always be a vampire, as there was nothing much she could do about it. She would always be a vampire spawn, too, as Cazador was dead and rotten and she would never be able to drink his blood.

Being bound up like this, only gave her time to reflect, making her realize once more what she had realized before already. She did not remember the woman – or maybe girl – she had once been. She remembered her old life, sure, but not much about it. So many things were missing, most of all the dreams she must have once had.

She had wanted a family, right? She was fairly certain of it. She had wanted a family. And she would never have one. A real one that was. A family of her own.

She was not even sure why it was not that she kept considering this again and again. But it seemed right now that thought was haunting her. Between all the other bad thoughts and memories in her mind. Memories of Cazador, of the things he had done to them. And the knowledge, the simple knowledge, that if not for a strange twist of fate she would have died three months ago, and would not even have seen it coming.

Her tail tried to flick once more, but right now it was tied down with a silver chain as well. Yesterday, when they had restrained her, it had been acting up still. She was fairly certain she had hurt someone with it. Something that would almost be funny, if it was not that sad.

Footsteps on the corridor outside made her look up. She gazed at the door of the small room, anticipating maybe Ulma or one of the other Gur to come look for her. They had done so every other hour after all.

However, the rhythm of the footsteps was not quite right. But she did not predict her visitor, until the door was opened.

Instinctively she threw herself against the silver binds. “You!”

The drow hesitated, as she stood in the doorframe, just about seven feet away from Aurelia, given that the room was in fact tiny. She looked at Aurelia for a long, long moment. But then she crouched down in front of her.

Aurelia could not help but notice, that there was still a bandage around the woman’s neck. And she did remember, how badly she had hurt that neck just the day before.

“What do you want?” she now hissed, looking at the drow.

But the woman just sighed. “I… I…” She frowned. “I think I have come to say… I am sorry.” She dared to take a step closer, even though Araj could not quite fight down her emotions. She snarled at the drow, trying to grasp for her.

“Sorry? Really?” Aurelia spat.

“I understand that my words have upset you,” the drow replied. “And despite what you might believe about me, that had not been my intention.”

“Oh, and you have clearly no understanding of why your fucking words upset me, have you?” Aurelia could not help another growl.

“I admit, that I have not,” the woman said. “And I guess I need to apologize for that, too.”

Aurelia spat at her. “Why did you even come?”

Purple eyes now looked at her in the twilight of that room. “Because I genuinely did not mean to…” The woman sighed. “I told you. Other than what you seem to believe about me, I am a woman of my words. A woman of honor.”

“Right.”

The drow brushed the spit out of her face, looking at it glitter on her hand, before wiping it off with a handkerchief. “Those binds… They look as if they are hurting.”

Once again Aurelia’s tail was flicking inadvertently, though it mostly made the silver chain wrapped around it jingle. “So?”

“They are burning your skin,” the drow said. “I can see it.”

“It is silver,” Aurelia replied. “So obviously it is burning.”

“Right… Silver… Silver burns vampires.” The drow came even closer now. “Have they kept you in it since yesterday?”

Aurelia evaded those purple eyes. “I have attacked the others as well,” she just said. Even thought it had been the drow’s fault to begin with. “It is just a safety precaution. Until I can calm down.” Once more her tail tensed against the silver chain, making it jingle, while also drawing the drow’s attention to it.

“Your tail… Is it a tiefling thing?” the drow asked.

“Having a tail?” Aurelia said. “Sure is.”

“No. I mean… You seem to struggle to control it. I have not been much around tieflings. But I have never heard about something like this…”

“Oh.” Aurelia turned her head to look at her own tail, as it was wiggling and trying to escape, no matter how much it made the silver burn against her. “No. That… It is a problem I seem to have. I have always had it, though.” Not that it really was of any concern to the fucking drow, was it now?

It was however the drow, who now sighed, as she looked at that tail. Then she got up, going over to the door. To leave, Aurelia assumed, but she was wrong. Instead the drow took the keyring that was hanging there. The keys for the silver binds.

“Don’t,” she hissed. “I will attack you again.”

“Why?” the drow asked.

“Because I find you infuriating,” Aurelia whispered. “Because you are a disgusting person, who lacks even the smallest bit of empathy. Because I…” She stopped, and be it just to once more evade that gaze.

The drow hesitated, too. But then she used the smallest key to open the lock on the silver chain holding Aurelia’s tail.

She could not help but hiss, as the burning metal was falling off.

Slowly she breathed in and out, while her tail was flicking back and forth again.

“Would you explain it to me?” the drow asked.

That tail was whipping back and forth once again, and it was almost aching to wrap itself around the drow’s neck.

“Explain what?” Aurelia whispered.

“Why you are so angry,” the drow replied. “I do indeed want to understand your fury.”

“Yet, you lack even the smallest bit of empathy to be able to understand it…”

“Then explain it to me,” the drow asked again.

“You still would not understand!”

“Try me.”

Aurelia growled at her, once more finding how much she would love to claw at the woman’s neck once more.

Yet, somehow the drow met her gaze. She met it and held it, until Aurelia could no longer stand it.

She spat once more, this time on the floor though. Then she drew a few deep breaths, grimacing as she considered her options. She really did not get, why the woman – who clearly was unable to feel even the slightest bit of empathy – was even trying to understand it. Why would she even care?

But it was not as if Aurelia had many options right now.

She growled once more, but then shook her head. “Do you have any idea what it was to serve Cazador?”

The drow hesitated. “No.”

“We were made to go trick people into coming with us. Most times by prostituting ourselves. I have lived under him for about sixty years and in those sixty years I have slept with more people, than I cared to count. I have been raped more often, than I know. If not by the people we were made to bring in, then by some of Cazador’s ‘special friends’, or by him, when he was getting bored. And he never… He never just raped us.” Her voice trembled. “That fucking bastard could not even get fucking hard without torturing someone first. And he loved to torture us. He would find reasons enough for it. Some mistakes we made. And if we did not make any, he would find some reason anyway.” She was grinding her teeth, as she remembered it. The many times she had been send to the kennel. The other times, she had been made to watch her siblings be tortured as well. “Somedays he would have his servant torture us. A fucking skeleton named Godey, who loved to whip us, until our rips were showing. And when he saw it necessary, Cazador would torture us himself. Do you know, what he loved to do?”

The drow hesitated, before shaking her head. “No?”

“He had a hundred needles made of a silver alloy. And he would not stop, until all hundred needles pierced one of us. At times he would use his power over us, to make us do it to ourselves. Or to one another.” Once more she could feel the anger boil up in her. The anger over the fucking unfairness of it all. That on all those years, nobody had come to save them. That in the end Cazador’s death had been too quick and painless, too.

“There was not a single day, in which I did not live in fear. Not a single fucking day,” she whispered. “And I was clumsy. I always have been. And he would torture me so often for it. So fucking often.” A shiver ran down her body. “There were so many days, on which I just hoped I could die just to escape it all. But I never dared to step out into the sun, either. And be it just, because it might not even have killed me.”

The drow was quiet for a long moment. “I… I understand, that you have suffered. I just… I just don’t…”

“Let me ask you this,” Aurelia whispered. “Do drow rape their slaves?”

“Well, I mean… the male drow serving their houses mostly are there to carry on the bloodlines, right? And what else are they…” She stopped, as Aurelia growled once more.

“Do drow prostitute their slaves?”

“At times,” the drow admitted. “It depends on the house and on what the matriarch…” Again one of Aurelia’s growls cut her short.

“What about torture? Are slaves tortured as punishment?”

“How else are they going to learn…”

When Aurelia threw herself against the binds, the drow stumbled backwards, ending up on the dusty floor.

“Then how the fuck is it any different from what Cazador did to us?” she hissed. “How the fuck can you not see that one is the same as the other? Those drow men and whoever else you people keep as your slaves… They have more fucking honor than you’ll ever have.”

“But…” The drow hesitated. “It was Lolth, who decided…”

“I don’t give a fuck about your goddess!”, Aurelia yelled. “She is evil and abhorrent and not any better than Cazador had been, if she really has decided that this is the best way for you people to live!”

“You don’t understand,” the woman whispered. “When the elven gods banished our kind, she…”

“She decided that the best way for you people to live was to abuse each other. Something only an evil god would ever do.”

“But Lolth…”

“She is horrible,” Aurelia hissed. “And so are you, if you really don’t understand how any of that is wrong.”

“But…”

“No!” Aurelia stared at her. “Shut the fuck up! I don’t care for your excuses. It is evil! And that is all that it is. It is evil, nothing more.”

“How can you…”

“Because other than you, I have seen what it is like to live like that. And now go. Go, or I swear to the gods, when I get out of this I will…” She struggled against those burning chains once more.

“I…” For a moment the drow hesitating, sitting there on the ground like this. But then she got up and sighed. “I… I am sorry,” she said once more, before turning to go.

Chapter Text

“Mother?” Araj’s voice sounded lost in the darkness of the empty corridor. By now she had healed herself with a proper portion, and was feeling somewhat strong again. Her mind was still confused, though, was still wondering. It was because of this, that she was up here. In the corridors, where she had met that old spider a good tenday ago.

She heard the many legs on the floor before she heard the clicking.

“You are no child of Lolth,” the spider said. It was not the old matriarch, but a younger spider. A male one, if Araj was not entirely mistaken.

She turned around to find it sitting on the ceiling of the corridor. “Are you one of mother’s children?”

The spider came down the wall. “What do you want from mother?”

Araj took a deep breath. “Her wisdom.” She could not explain it in any other way.

The spider had bluish lines running over his body, while his eyes were glowing purple. One of Lolth’s spiders, no doubt. “You have lied to mother, have you not. You are not one of Lolth’s children.”

“I am,” Araj replied. “I am one of her own. A dark elf of the Abyss.”

“No,” the spider hissed. “I can smell it on you. There is something wrong with you. Something deeply wrong. I smelled it before. I smelled this before.”

“I am an alchemist.” She told the same lie she had told before. “That is all you smell.”

But the spider backed up, the little hairs on his legs standing up. “No. It is not that. I have smelled this before. It’s the same smell I have smelled on those dirty duergar. Those duergar, who tried to make me and my siblings their own.”

“Do not compare me with a dirty duergar!” Araj replied.

“Then why do you smell like them?”

She knew. Of course. She knew. Because the duergar had been created by illithids, while it had been the illithid that her family had experimented with. It was illithid blood mixing with her own, that made her smell so different – and her taste apparently as well.  “I don’t know,” she lied. “I do not know what you smell.”

“You are dangerous, aren’t you?” the spider hissed.

“I am not,” she replied. “Not for any of Lolth children. All I want is to rise in Lolth’s honor!”

“So you have lost it in the past? Lolth’s honor?”

“What? No. I…” Araj could not help herself, taking a few steps back. “I…”

“Mother is old. She has kept out of the conflicts between the gods and those thinking themselves as such. I swore to protect her. My siblings will protect her.”

“And I won’t harm her. I just…” Araj could feel a shiver run through her body, before turning away. “I will not bother you further.”

What else was she going to say? What else could she say?

Lolth. The Spider Queen. The Goddess of the Abyss. The goddess of the drow, the one who had led them down here into the Underdark for them to be safe. All Araj’s family had ever done had been for the honor of their goddess – but if she was honest, Araj knew not whether the goddess had ever seen their actions, had ever acknowledged them.

So many years. So many years Araj had given to the research to restore the honor of her House, but the truth was, that she did not know whether it was something that could be done. Whether the other drow would ever acknowledge them in any way. In any positive way.

Oh, Araj had known it the entire time. There was a chance, that she might not be allowed back into the city, would not be allowed back into Menzoberranzan. She had even made a plan for it. If they would not have her, she would go into the Rift, she would raise the dead bodies of the males sacrificed there and use them to exact her revenge on the other Houses.

A desperate plan, she knew it. But at least it was a plan.

After all, there was nobody else left of her family. Everyone else was dead. There was only Araj – as she had never managed to produce an heir. Or rather, she had never done the thing necessary to even create the possibility for an heir. But there were no drow she knew. Nobody who was a potential partner to create an heir with. And as things were looking right now, her House would end with her.

So, why not do something crazy? Why not rain down destruction on Menzoberranzan? Take a last stand for her family line…

“You! Drow!” The voice was cutting. She had not expected it, jumping almost as it sounded behind her.

Turning around she found gnome standing behind her. One of the vampire spawn, she realized after a moment.

She frowned. “Yes?”

The gnome looked down the corridor she had come out from. “What have you been doing there?”

With a grunt, she rolled her eyes. “Will you leave me alone, if I just confirm your suspicion, that I am conspiring with other drow?” Maybe it really had been a mistake to come here – to go anywhere, really.

With all the vampires it was quite hard to estimate their age before turning. And that was without even considering how different the people of Faerûn aged. Still, his red eyes were narrowed, as he looked at her for a long moment, but then he sighed. “You will have to forgive us for asking questions,” he said. “Your kind does have a certain reputation.”

“Yes, I am aware,” she muttered. “It is not as if vampires have much of a better reputation, though, do they now?”

For just a split second something like a smile flickered over his face. “Fair enough. You are right about that.” He twirled around the knife he had been holding, before putting it away. “But if you are not a spy, then what brought you here?”

Araj crossed her arms. “I told you people, didn’t I? I am simply an alchemist, who…”

“I do not believe you,” he said.

She looked at him. “What?”

“I don’t believe that story,” he repeated. “There are things you are hiding. And I want to know what they are.” He paused, before nodding in the direction of the staircase. “Walk with me.”

For a long moment Araj just stood there, at the top of those stairs. The simple fact that he – a male, and a fucking gnome at that – told her what to do made her resistant to do it. If anything he was supposed to be a slave. It was, what his kind was meant to be. Everybody knew that gnomes were best used as slave population. But even Araj was aware enough that this was not the place to say it.

Her arms still crossed, she sighed, before following him.

It seemed that he waited for her to say something, but she most certainly would not tell him any secrets. So in the end it was him, who broke the silence. “I am one of the oldest here,” he said. “The oldest of the seven spawn that Cazador kept around. At least… At least from us down here.”

She grunted, not wanting to answer.

“Maybe it should’ve been me to offer to drink from you,” he mused. “But Aurelia was… She was insistent.”

Araj continued to keep quiet.

“I think she wants to feel useful,” the gnome continued to muse. “She was always the weakest link in the chain.” He paused for a moment, stopping even in his stride just as he reached the lower level. “I always wondered, why Cazador had chosen her of all people. Why he let her live, too. Though… He never killed one of us.”

“Why are you telling me that?” Araj asked.

He turned to her, smiled and shrugged. “See, me and Petras, we always have been the assholes. We were often not better towards our siblings than Cazador himself. We thought that way we could impress him, could spare ourselves some punishment. And maybe we did. At times we did. But it was not as if it made us any better, was it?”

“How should I know?” Araj grumbled.

“What was your role in your society?” he said. “I can tell that you did not live with a lot of other drow.”

“Oh, yeah?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” He continued down the next stair. “You see, if anything doing Cazador’s bidding taught me quite a bit in reading people. You read as someone disconnected. Like a single page of a lost book.”

Now it was her, who stopped. “Is there a point to this poetics?”

He sighed – in a rather annoyed manner, as if he had to explain something to a child. “I do think you are not quite as clever, as you consider yourself. Your decision to come here speaks of it. There were painfully few scenarios in which a large group of vampires living together would have agreed to your deal. Do you even realize? Most would have simply killed you. And maybe they would’ve been wiser for it.”

A shiver ran down Araj’s spine. She did not want to think about this. She did not want to think about dying.

“I am not quite as apprehensive about any drow attack as the others,” he continued. “If the drow had any interest in this place, they could have taken it a long time ago.” He shook his head. “No, I do not think you work for any other drow. In fact…” He turned to her, looking at her attentively. “I do not think you know a lot of other drow, do you?”

There was something about the expression in those red eyes, that made Araj evade his gaze – realizing a moment too late, that with this she had told on herself.

He knew it, too. Smiling as he did. And it was this smile that made the anger boil inside of her. Who was he to talk to her like this? A male? A gnome? A spawn? He had no right to talk to her this way. “Is there any point to this fucking interrogation? Or do you simply want to feel so very clever?”

He chuckled. “Admittedly, I do like to feel clever. But I think most of all…” He sighed once more. “I think most of all, I am trying to protect her. My sister. Aurelia.”

“From me? The drow, who you established was a ‘lost page of a book’ or something?”

“Yes,” he simply said. “See… The crux of our condition is a strange one. No matter what Cazador did to us – no matter how much he tortured us… We would always heal. Because our physical bodies are close to indestructible. But our souls…” He stopped. “She was always frail. Always crying. She could not deal well with the violence, you know? Neither the violence Cazador did to us, nor the one that he expected us to deal out. She would cry even over those animals she had to kill to feed. I think it was because of that, that Astarion and Leon were so protective of her…”

Araj frowned. “Astarion?”

“The oldest of us,” the gnome said. “At least the oldest to live.”

She knew the name of course. Oh, she knew that insolent fucking guy. “Elven vampire spawn with a naughty attitude?”

The gnome raised an eyebrow. “You met him?”

She evaded his gaze again. “I met him.”

“He was the one who killed Cazador,” the gnome said. “The one who freed us. Though he stayed on the surface, when we left for the Underdark.”

“He fought that elderbrain,” Araj muttered.

“What?”

Rolling her eyes, she decided she could give up at least that much information. “He got involved with that entire Absolute scheme. And he was part of those who ended up fighting that Elderbrain in Baldur’s Gate.”

Again the gnome was chuckling. “And I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Look, I guess your stupid Cazador did not take any part in that. But there had been a scheme done by some people. They planted magically altered illithid tadpoles into people’s heads and made them think that the Elderbrain, those tadpoles were bound to, was a sort of god. It ended up with an attack on the city of Baldur’s Gate, in which some senseless adventurers fought that Elderbrain – and won. Your elven ‘brother’ being among them.”

Strangely enough that got the gnome to smile. “And from this I take, that you have not been in the Underdark for a long time, have you? You were there. In Baldur’s Gate?”

Araj bit her lip. She had not considered how much she had said with her words. After a moment of hesitation, she changed the subject – or tried to at least. “Who was Leon?”

The gnome raised an eyebrow again, seeming amused by her blatant attempt. Still, he indulged her. “The youngest of us siblings. He… As I said, both he and Astarion were quite protective of Aurelia. But Leon… See, he had a daughter. A human daughter. A mortal one. She died shortly before Cazador was defeated. Leon… Leon blamed Darylia – our other sister – for it. And soon after we got here, their argument escalated and he killed her over it. He… left. I think a part of Aurelia wanted to go with him.”

For a moment, Araj considered this. At least it explained, where those other three of the core siblings were. Astarion was on the surface still. Last she had known of him, he had stayed with that wonderful bleeder of hers. Darylia was dead. And Leon had left. Leaving only the four others here.

He fully turned around to her now, eying her with some suspicion. “So. What about your story? What kind of drow spends years on the surface?”

She grimaced, looking at the small man. She still did not owe him anything. “A scientist,” she said. “Alchemist. Someone who has dedicated herself to her science. Simple as that.”

Chapter Text

“Come on, Aurelia.” Lenore sat down on the side of Aurelia’s bed. “You cannot spend another three days gloomily starring into the void.” She was another one of the ‘conquests’. A petit wood-elven girl, who now looked at Aurelia with some worry.

“I am just…” Aurelia did not finish the sentence, because she did not know how. It had been five days since she had attacked Araj. Three days, since Ulma had decided to let her go once more. But a part of her might have preferred to still be down there, bound up in silver chains.

“You are being depressed,” Tianna said. “That’s all. And I can tell you, that sitting in your bed the entire day, is not going to fix any depression.”

Aurelia’s tail was flicking nervously from side to side once more. “Then what is?”

“Living,” Lenore replied and took Aurelia’s hand. “Come. Let’s go… outside. Get you moving once again, before this can get any worse.”

“It’s not like there is a lot of places for us to go,” Aurelia protested half-heartedly.

“Anything is better than you sitting here,” Tianna said. “Now, come on. Alright? Come on.”

Again there were tears burning in Aurelia’s eyes, even though she was certain what those tears were about. She had been crying a lot during those last few days. Sadness and frustration kept filling her up again and again.

Still, the two other spawns were quite insistent on this. They pushed and pulled, until Aurelia simply gave in, standing up.

She did not understand why they would even worry about her. Because, well… They were here because of her. It was her fault that they had spent so many years in that dungeon starving. Sure, technically speaking it was Cazador’s fault, but it was not as if her master was around to blame any longer.

“See?” Lenore looked Aurelia over. “That is a first step. Now… I think we need to get you washed up and dressed properly.” She exchanged a gaze with Tianna. “What do you think?”

“I think that somebody does need a bath, yes,” Tianna said. “And a long walk after that.”

And what was Aurelia to do about it? She could not do much but resign herself to her fate. She allowed both of the other vampires to push her towards one of the baths, where she washed in cold water. She allowed them to do her hair properly, too. While it would not grow – and could not be cut – it still could be styled in some ways.

Tianna ended up deciding on combing it down, so that it barely reached Aurelia chin.

And even though they did not have a lot of choice in their dress either, at least the clothes that Lenore picked for her were clean once more.

It did not stop Aurelia from standing there, having her arms wrapped around her torso though. Her body felt so heavy right now, making her want nothing more but to lie down and curl up. Like an animal, maybe. Like a cat.

“Look, Rel,” Lenore said, “I know you blame yourself for attacking that drow, but… I mean, she was kinda asking for it, right?”

Aurelia did not even look at the other woman. “You do not know what happened.”

“Well, no,” Lenore admitted. “But… I mean, I have seen that woman stalking about. And she gives off some seriously creepy vibes.”

Tianna nodded in agreement. “She does. Sure does.” She carefully put a hand onto Aurelia’s shoulder. “And… I mean… I doubt that you would just attack her for the fun of it. It is not… I mean…”

“She is trying to say, that you are not an aggressive person,” Lenore said.

Their words only made Aurelia sigh, though. “But what if I am? I mean… What if it is our nature? It felt… It felt so good. And…” She did not finish. But there was a thing she was only recently realizing: She barely knew anything about her vampiric nature. Because Cazador had never taught them really, how to be a vampire. To him, they only ever had been slaves and prostitutes, nothing more.

It made things even harder.

This, too. Because she could not be next to those other two women and not think about them in terms of when she had slept with them. Tianna had been one of those rather innocent ones. Those who had liked romance and sensitivity. Lenore had been more about the act itself. She really had wanted to fuck, had wanted to tie Aurelia up during it, too. Of course Aurelia had played along, because it had not been as if she could afford to not bring in another victim. But she had cried that night, or rather on that next day. She had cried for so many reasons.

“I do not know about ‘our nature’,” Tianna said, “but you… I mean… I do know about you, that you will barely be willing to hurt an animal. So, whatever that vile drow said, I do believe that you attacked her for a reason.”

Again Aurelia did not reply. Of course she did. And she still felt in the right about it. But at the same time… It was exactly this. It had felt so right. So gods-darn fucking right. Killing the drow would have been so easy in that moment…

“Admittedly, I would love to know more about our ‘nature’,” Lenore muttered. She carefully took Aurelia’s hand. “All I know about my nature right now is, that I am constantly craving blood.” She sighed. “Hells, right now I would give a lot to know what it would be like to be a satiated vampire.”

“If there is such a thing,” Tianna said with some bitterness in her voice.

Aurelia dared just short gazes at them. “There isn’t.” Because she knew that even though she and her siblings had not been starved, she could also not remember a moment ever since she had died, that the hunger had truly been gone.

“Great,” Lenore muttered. “Just great.” Still, she pressed Aurelia’s hand. “Let’s get you outside, shall we?”

“It is not as if you let me do anything else, right?” Aurelia replied.

“We will take some care of you,” Tianna said. “Because… frankly, you need it right now.”

As such, they stuck to their word. They dragged her “outside”, even though it did not really feel as if there was a real “outside” down here in the Underdark. Once more Aurelia just noticed how much she missed the wind – how much she missed the stars as well. The Underdark had this strange atmosphere about it. This strange silence, that gave her the creeps on some days. It felt almost, as if it was eating up sounds, while also producing some strange sounds of its own. Grumbling. Breathing at times. But not in the same way that the wind on the surface would caress one.

No, when the Underdark was breathing, it was spooky. It was like a monster inhaling to eat you up.

The other sound that one would always hear in the Underdark was dripping water. It seemed that somewhere there was always some water dripping down from some walls and ceilings. Dripping down onto the ground – or into other bodies of water.

Right now she could hear it, too, as the other two brought her to another piece of shore, that almost could be described as a beach. It was rocky, and not quite as inviting as that little sandy patch further out. But still… There was some water. Right now there were even little waves covering the water surface, making her look out onto the ocean, wondering whether a creature was moving around there.

Lenore seemed to have a similar thought. “I really cannot help but wonder, what kind of creepers might be out there,” she muttered.

“I think it is best not thought about it,” Tianna replied.

Aurelia just sighed, sitting down on one of the rocks. She tried to breath, tried to relax. And still she could not help it: “I miss the wind.”

The other two women turned around to her. “What?”

Aurelia shook her head. “It is just… I miss feeling the wind on my skin. And I miss the smell of the city.” The smell of what still had been some sort of home to her. “And I…”

She was well aware that her two companions exchanged a long gaze. And yes, she knew quite well… Especially after her attacking the drow, Ulma would most certainly not allow her to visit the surface any time soon. No, for now she had to stay here. It was just…

“Maybe in a year or so,” Tianna said. “Maybe we can get to travel then.”

“When things are safer,” Lenore agreed. “For us… And I guess for them.”

With a sigh, Aurelia nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the inky black water, wondering what secrets it might be hiding. She knew so little about this world, too. But in general she knew that she never really had learned much about anything. Not the world above, just even less about this world, right?

It was Tianna, who crouched down next to her, putting a hand onto Aurelia’s shoulder. A gesture that was undoubtedly meant to be comforting, but right now…

It was Lenore’s voice, that made Aurelia look up, though. “What is she doing here?”

Looking up, Aurelia almost instantly saw her. The drow, who stood a bit further away from the water, but who clearly had seen them in turn. She seemed to be hesitating, not quite willing to go over to them – but interested, too. She kept looking.

Lenore groaned, making her decision rather quickly. Stomping over there like an angry mule, she made her way to the drow.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Tianna said. “I mean, if you don’t want to see that woman ever again, then…”

Aurelia found herself sighing once more, looking over to the others.

Another strange aspect of the Underdark was, that sound down here was often carried far. As such she could quite well hear Lenore speaking, as she finally reached the drow.

“Are you a stalker or something?”

The drow did something, that did surprise Aurelia, however. She took a step back. “I just happened to see you,” she said slowly. “And I… There was something I wanted to give to Aurelia.”

“I do not think she wants to talk to you.”

“You could ask her that yourself,” the drow said, some bitterness in her voice.

“Why would I? Didn’t you already do enough harm?”

At this the drow was silent once more. Aurelia noticed her gaze flickering over to her and Tianna, though. Then she sighed. “Look. Just… This is something I made for her. For her… For her tail. Just give it to her, alright?”

Lenore scoffed. “For her tail?”

“Yes,” the drow replied. “She… She knows why.”

“And what if she doesn’t want it?” Lenore looked at the drow. Even though Aurelia could not see her expression, she knew it to be icy cold.

“Look… Just… Just give it to her, alright?” The drow pressed the thing she had gotten out into Lenore’s hand, before turning around to go.

Lenore did tense, still. “You are a fucking creep. Just so you know,” she shouted after the drow, but was ignored in the end.

For a moment, Lenore just stood there, before sighing and turning to come back to Aurelia and Tianna. Only now could Aurelia see, what she had been given. A small clay pot, that had a rather strong herbal smell.

“Do you want me to throw it away?” Lenore asked, once she had reached them.

“No.” Aurelia shook her head, stretching out her hand to take that pot, opening it. The scent was really strong, yet somehow also quite pleasant. The pot was filled with a sort of crème or ointment. Something fatty, as far as Aurelia could tell.

For her tail? For the twitching? It was the best thing she could think about.

She held the pot in her hands for a long moment. Because she did not understand. She did not understand what this darn drow was thinking to begin with.

Maybe she should throw the pot away. Maybe she should. But at the same time…

Chapter Text

Maybe Araj should end it. This entire part of her story. Maybe she should simply leave Grymforge behind and finally make her way to Menzoberranzan – even if it might mean her death. And she knew it. Deep in her heart, she knew that the chances were high the other drow would never accept her or her House back in their midst. But the truth remained that there was no other place for her to go. There was no other place for her to be.

The little canoe made its way over the underground ocean only slowly, though Araj could vaguely make out the shore on the other side. She had wanted to check it out, after all. The magician’s tower. Maybe inside of it she would find some information that could be of help to her. She doubted it, sure, as the magician did not even focus on the Sanguine Arts, but in the end this was just another excuse for her to not yet make her way back to Menzoberranzan.

Maybe she was a traitor. A traitor to her family name. A traitor to the House of Oblodra. Because even as their last blood, she was not willing to give it all.

She was afraid.

It was a new realization she had had. She was afraid. Of returning. Of doing the one thing she had worked towards her entire life. A hundred and sixty years. But she knew that this one and a half century might not matter to those other drow. She knew quite well, that she might die as soon as she was spotted by the guards of Menzoberranzan.

And yet, it was the right thing to do. Or… Well, at the very least it was the honorable thing to do. To return. To try and restore her family’s name.

Instead she was here, her canoe making land at the other side of this small ocean, on a beach that was mostly abandoned.

She could not even say, why she was so afraid. After all, it should be her honor to die in her family’s name. Everyone else already had. Her mother, her aunts, her grandmother and her cousins. They had all died in the name of their house. Just as those useless male slaves had. There had to be worse things than dying – worse fates than death.

Getting out the sketched map, she tried to orient herself at this side of the water.

It was silly, really. Because she did not even know whether her first experiment had failed. With the vampire girl attacking her, it was not quite clear whether or not the potion had done what it had supposed to do. And Aurelia… Well, it was not as if they had talked really after it. Not after that day in the dungeon that was.

Araj did not know how to talk to the vampire girl either. Not after those words, and after those tears.

In her life, Araj had made quite a few people cry. There had been those who had suffered through her experiments. And there had been those begging her with tears in their eyes to save them or a loved one from sickness or poisoning. It had never done a lot to her. Because their problems… It had not been hers. And what right had a surface dweller to complain about her experiments?

Yet, that vampire girl. Her tears. Something about them…

Araj did not know how to describe it. They had hurt. They had hurt her. And she… she did not quite get why. Why would she be hurting from those tears spilled by someone else?

Maybe, she reasoned, it was not the tears that had made her feel that way. Maybe it was the fact that the vampire girl had made her feel stupid. Because the truth was, that even now Araj did not fully understand what the girl had said.

She understood that the old vampire bastard had made Aurelia and her siblings his slaves. Yes. He understood that they were still hurting because of it. But she did not quite get, what this had to do with her people.

Her people…

Those words hurt, even if just thought in her head. She did not understand this, either. Or rather, she did not want to understand it. Because understanding it would mean to admit, that she knew quite well that the drow were not her people.

That she did not have any “people” to call her own. Her tribe. Her family. Her home.

But she had her House, right? House Oblodra. And it was just her role in all of this to revive them. To make her family return. She needed a daughter or two and then… Then things would be alright again, right? It had always been so clear. Impress the other drow, return her House back to Menzoberranzan, take a few males, get a daughter or two. Her bloodline did not need to end with her. And then there would be a new family. A new start. A new…

Why did those thoughts hurt her as well? Why did they create this burning feeling in her chest? She did not understand. She did not… She…

Looking at the map, she knew she could not be too far away from the tower of that magician. It was abandoned, she had been told. Which was good. This way she would not have to deal with any magician – which was probably a good thing.

She found a way up from the beach, trying to keep her mind occupied. Sure, the Underdark was a dangerous place, but she belonged here. She was a drow. She was still a drow. She was still one of Lolth’s children.

There was also a Myrconid colony not too far from here. But she did not dare to venture there. Those mushrooms had the nasty habit of fighting back – and she did not need to risk that. No. For now the magician’s tower would be enough to plunder.

And then she would figure this out. She would figure out how to feed the vampires, before she would do what she owed her family. She would return to the home, she did not really know. She would at least try, what she had promised her grandmother and her mother. Because it was, what she owed.

Soon enough, she found the gate, that had to belong to the tower. She admittedly gave a small sigh of relief as she did. Because she did not feel as safe as she would like to. Yet, entering the magician’s lost property, she made the mistake of letting down her guard.

She noticed, as the energy missile missed her by but a hair.

Instinctively, she took cover behind a wall, before realizing what she had missed: Maybe that magician had abandoned the tower, yes. Indeed she could see the tower rising up from the chasm below. But while maybe abandoned and dark for the most part, there were magic turrets in front of it.

“Darn it,” she hissed. This she had not expected. What now?

She had come all the way here in the hope to find something of value here. But turrets… Well, those things were annoying for good fighters – for mages, too. She was neither. She was an alchemist, and most certainly did not belong onto a battle field.

For a moment she allowed herself to think. At least those turrets did not fire magic missiles that could go around cover. In fact they did not even seem to realize she was there.

Had she been a mage, she might have understood, how those things worked, how they detected her. But she did not. All she knew was, that she could not be hit too many times. It would kill her. And she simply could not die. Because there were still things for her to do.

She took a deep breath and considered her options.

There was a reason she had survived this long, even though she had never been a fighter: She had been stealthy. Even back in Moonrise Towers, when the Harpers had suddenly attacked, she had been able to sneak out before someone had gotten to her. After all, those darn Harpers would most certainly killed that single drow there without a second thought.

She closed her eyes. This was stupid. She should not do this. She knew she shouldn’t. And yet…

Why was she doing this?

Her gaze darted over the road up to the tower and the stairs in front. There were a total of three turrets, that she could see. But the tower actually started up lower, making her think that beyond that wall, there was a lower level for her to stand on.

And this meant…

She took her bag, filled with a variety of smaller flasks of potions. She might well regret, what she was about to do. But it seemed like the simplest solution. And sometimes the simple solutions were the best solutions, allowing to not get lost in too many details.

Among her potions was a potion of Featherfall. Downed it would give her a short while, in which she would be able to jump from great heights without suffering any consequences. It had to be the simplest solution for this.

Taking a deep breath, she downed the potion, before eyeing the wall to her side.

She had to be fast.

Another deep breath, then she ran. She ran and jumped, almost vaulting the wall. Almost…

Then too many things happened at once, as the turret turned, and shot. Just in the same moment, as she cleared that vault, going over the edge.

In one moment there was pain. Then she fell.

With a grunt she landed in the mud a good twenty feet below. Her leg… It was hurting. Burning in fact.

She bit her teeth together, as she looked down her stupid leg. That magic attack from the turret had pierced her entire shin, leaving a burning open wound. Because of course something like this had to happen to her now.

She drew in a shaky, desperate breath. No need to panic. She had healing potions on herself. Nothing she could not deal with.

But she was still an idiot, wasn’t she? She was a fucking idiot. Because she should’ve known this would happen – and she still had gone here, still had done this. And for what? Some stupid vampires who despised her just as everyone else did?

The truth was, that Araj had always known that there was no place in this entire world she belonged to. Because of those things her ancestors did. It had not even been her choice. But she did not belong to Menzoberranzan. It had been decided in her childhood that she did not belong to that place. Yet, she had never belonged anywhere else, either. Because she was still a child of Lolth. A child of Lolth, who had no place to go. Where, if not in Menzoberranzan, would she ever find a home?

Tears were burning in her own eyes. A miserable sign of weakness.

She owed her family to restore that House, that family name, didn’t she? She did owe it to her mother, her grandmother, her aunts and cousins to return to Menzoberranzan and at least try it. Even though she already knew that she did not belong to that place either. Even though there was a high likelihood she would get killed. And even if she did not get killed… Her life had never been her own.

She looked at her burned leg, wincing as she looked in her bag for a healing potion.

More tears were running over her cheeks, as a stupid, desperate sob rose in her throat. Why was she even crying? Why did she keep failing? Why had she failed so many times before?

She uncorked the flask, trying to control her sobs to be able to swallow the potion. Yet, instead of her holding back her sobs, a whimper rose in her throat. Then she screamed.

Chapter Text

On later days, Aurelia would wonder whether it had been a sort of sixth sense keeping her out by the small port that night. A sixth sense, or maybe some strange turn of fate. All she knew was, that she had been out that night, while most of the others had settled down. She was out, when that canoe approached Grymforge across that underground ocean, carrying a single drow.

When she saw the canoe, Aurelia first retreated behind one of the columns surrounding the little port. She watched from the shadows, as the drow fought herself up from a sitting position, climbing carefully onto the firm land once more. The woman was wincing as she did, gasping, as she set her foot wrongly.  It was her right foot that did not seem quite as well. It was her right foot at least, that gave out under her, making the drow cower on the stone ground, breathing slowly.

She was injured, wasn’t she?

Hidden by shadows, Aurelia watched the woman, as she tied off the boat, before getting out her bag. She nearly stumbled, though, almost falling into the inky water.

The decision was made within a split second. Or rather it was not even a proper decision. Aurelia’s body simply acted, grabbing the drow by her shoulder. “Careful.”

For a moment the drow’s eyes widened, as they looked at Aurelia. She did not say anything, though even with her dark skin she looked rather pale.

“You… You are injured,” Aurelia noted.

“It’s…” The drow evaded Aurelia’s gaze. “I just need my potions.”

A tense moment passed, as they looked at each other. Then Aurelia drew in a deep breath, before pulling the drow’s left arm over her shoulder. “I’m gonna bring you to the tower.”

Almost she expected for the drow to not let her. The woman tensed and Aurelia was so sure, she would try to push away, but in the end, she sighed. “Thank you.”

It was all that was said. All that needed to be said for now. Thankfully that old watch tower was not too far away from that little port – even though getting there meant climbing quite a few stairs. Something that was not easy, given that the drow’s shank seemed to be hurting quite badly. While the woman was trying to hide the pain, she was not that successful with it. Again and again she was hissing in pain, whenever she wrongly placed her foot.

Several times they needed to pause, with the drow’s breath being tense and pained. In the end they managed, though, making their way to the tower’s ground floor.

Aurelia did not say anything, rather looking through the shelves the drow had, until she found a proper healing potion. “This should work, right?”

The drow – her face sweaty now – nodded. She did not speak, rather uncorking the small bottle and emptying it in two gulps.

It was obvious, that she was in a bad state. She had been crying, too. Her make-up, that had been flawless for the entire time, was messy, the eyeshadow streaking over her face in white metallic lines.

For a long moment Aurelia simply hesitated, watching the other woman. Then she dared to ask. “What happened?”

The drow evaded her gaze. Still, she answered: “I heard about an abandoned mage tower. A mage, who also did a lot of alchemical research. I wanted to just have a look. I did not consider that the mage might still have defenses up.” She sighed, before carefully opening her boots to strip of them.

The right boot was mostly in tatters, clearly having been hit by something… A magic attack, probably.

When the drow stripped of her trousers, too, Aurelia could get a better look at the wound that was now healing. Something had fully pierced that shank, taken out quite a bit of muscle, too.

“Should I… Should I get someone to have a look at it?” she asked carefully, but the drow shook her head.

“It should heal. I… I just did not take enough healing potions with me.” She pursed her lips, taking a few deliberate breaths once more.

Aurelia watched her for a moment, unsure what she should do instead. “I… Is there anything else…?”

The drow was silent. She did not dare to look at Aurelia directly, rather fixing her gaze to a corner of the staircase leading upstairs. “I… I lied before.”

Aurelia raised an eyebrow. “What?”

The drow still would not look at her directly. “I…” Her lips quivered just a bit, when she took another breath. She closed her eyes. “My family… They are all dead. All… All of them.”

Aurelia could not help but frown, as she took a few steps back. Again her tail was flicking nervously. “What?”

“I…” The drow licked her lips. “The truth is, that we were… We were banished from Menzoberranzan, when I was still a child. Because my ancestors… They…” Her voice broke for a moment. “Illithids…” Another shaky breath. “The reason my blood tastes like that… I… I think I am at least… I am at least part-illithid.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t really know myself. But I know that it is why we… why we were banished. Because… They… My ancestors – they tried to awaken psychic abilities in our family. I think. I… I was not quite grown, when we were made to leave Menzoberranzan. And I… I never returned. Because… I mean… I have worked for it, you know? I tried to perfect alchemy. To proof to the other Houses in Menzoberranzan, that my family has worth. And I thought that if I perfected the Sanguine Arts, I could return, could rebuild my House. But…” She paused for a moment. “I mean, I am not stupid. I always knew that… I knew that they would not take me back.”

Aurelia just stood there, unsure how to reply to this revelation. She did not even know whether it was just another lie. Because… Why?

Why would the drow tell her that?

Silence fell between them, and only after a while did the drow dare to look at Aurelia again – and be it just for a short moment. There was insecurity in that gaze. The kind of insecurity this woman had hidden before. An insecurity, that Aurelia did not know how to deal with.

She sighed. “Why… Why did you come here?”

Another shaky breath was taken. “I… I finished my research about three months ago. I… I had a breakthrough. And I… My family… They made me promise that I would return the House of Oblodra. That I would…” She shook her head, trying to find the right words. “In the end I could… I could not wait any longer. And so…” She stopped short. “You know, I lived in Baldur’s Gate for the last fifty years.”

Aurelia looked at her. “On your own?”

“I… My mother was with me, when I left the Underdark. But… She died not long after.”

It took Aurelia a moment to make sense of those words. In the end she stumbled backwards, until she was sitting on one of the lower stairs, wrapping her tail around her knees.

When she didn’t say anything else, the drow slowly continued: “I… I came here after everything with the Absolute…” She stopped herself. “I know that you and your siblings, you did not really know much about that. But there had been chaos in the city, just after you left. And because of the chaos… I finished my research, you know? There was not much more reason for me to stay. But…” A deep sigh came over her lips. “When I came down here, I heard…” Another pause. “I am not lying. I… I always was fascinated by vampires. I don’t know why. I just know that… I know that I was. And… When I came down here and heard that a larger group of vampires had settled…” Slowly she drew in another breath. “I know it was stupid. I have known it the entire time. I just…” She wrapped her arms closer around herself. “It’s just… It’s not much of a difference, right? Whether it is you people killing me, or the other drow, I mean.”

Now Aurelia was frowning. “You really mean it? The other drow are going to kill you?”

The woman nodded. “I think they might.”

“Then why would you go there?”

“Because I… Because I owe my family. I owe it to my mother, my grandmother, to those who came before me. I mean… It is who I am, right? Who I…” The drow shook her head, sinking even more against the backrest of the chair.

As Aurelia looked at her, she realized something for the very first time. She realized how lost this woman was. About as lost as she and her siblings – or maybe even more. Because they at least had each other. For better or worse, they had each other. And this horrible woman? She… She had nobody, had she?

The tip of her tail was twitching just a bit, as Aurelia tried to consider this perspective.

“Is your entire family dead?” she asked.

For a moment Araj was silent. “As far as I know, yes. They all… My female relatives at the very least. And… I mean… Yeah, they all… They died. Some got killed by the other drow. Some… Well, things happened.”

Aurelia looked at her once more, trying to read that face for the first time. The entire time the drow had been rather good to hide herself behind a sense of superiority, but anything of the sort had seemingly melted away. Right now she mostly looked miserable – and Aurelia did not fully understand. What had happened out there to put her into this condition? Because it was not just the wound, was it? No, something else… Something had happened.

“And because of that you want to go to Menzoberranzan and get yourself killed?” she asked.

“It’s what I owe them. It is what I owe my family…”

“Why?”

“Because they are my blood,” Araj replied. “Because I… I am the last one to live.” She shook her head, then sighed. “What else am I going to do?”

Aurelia did not answer instantly. She looked at her tail, at the flicking tip, but in her mind’s eye she remembered that family she once had had. That human family, who mostly was dead by now too, right? She did not know. But she had to assume. It had been sixty years. The family, who had never really wanted her – because nobody ever had.

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “What… What do you want to do?”

“Me?”

“Yes. You.”

Again Araj fell silent, then she shook her head, though she did not speak those words that were naturally hanging in the air.

Aurelia could not help another sigh, as she looked over to the drow. “What… What about us? I mean, do you really… Do you really want to help us?”

The drow considered this for a moment, but then she slowly nodded. “I think so.”

“Then… Maybe do that,” Aurelia said. She tried a smile, but knew very well that she failed.

Araj once more stared into the corner of the room. “You hate me, though, don’t you?”

“I do. In a way,” Aurelia admitted. “Because you are a fucking asshole. But…” She licked her lips, watching the woman on her chair. “Maybe you could actually consider being something else. You know? Instead of an asshole, I mean.”

At this the drow said nothing.

For a moment, Aurelia allowed herself to breath, closing her eyes as she did. Then she got up. “I think I… I think I will go for now. If that’s okay with you.”

Araj made a strange sound, but then she nodded. “Sure. I… I think I will just lie down.”

Somehow Aurelia managed a forced smile. “I… I will look after you tomorrow. Or will send someone. Something… Something like that.”

Araj nodded. “Th-thank you.”

Without a further word, Aurelia got up from the stair, going over to the tower’s door, while the drow got herself up with a groan. Already did Aurelia have her hand on the doorknob, when the drow spoke once more.

“Your… Your elder brother,” she said carefully. “Astarion, I mean… He… Last I knew, he was alive.”

Aurelia turned around. “You know Astarion?”

“Yeah.” Somehow Araj managed a smile of her own. “He hated me, too, you know?”

And for just a moment, the smile on Aurelia’s lips turned somewhat genuine. “Figures.”

Chapter Text

By the time Araj woke, her leg was not hurting anymore. In the end the wound had not been so desperate, that it could not be fixed with a good healing potion. It just had taken a bit of time.

She put her blanket to the side, as she woke, to have a look at the wound, grimacing as she found the skin not fully smooth yet. She did not want to sustain a scar, though she could probably do something about it with the right ointment.

With a sigh, she let herself fall back onto her bedroll once again, closing her eyes.

She still felt fairly horrible. Her eyes were burning, and she knew it was, because she had cried during that last day. It felt strange, because she had tried for so long, to hold back her tears – to not show her weakness.

Rolling onto her side, she just laid there, looking at the other wall.

She did remember her return here. She did remember Aurelia, too. Aurelia, who had been kind – despite everything. Araj could not make sense of it.

She also remembered, what they had talked about, and thinking about that conversation made her stomach harden. Frustrated with herself, she groaned, when she could feel new tears forming in her eyes.

It was not about what she wanted. It was never about what she wanted – never had been. And it was alright. It was alright. It had to be alright.

She tried to wipe her tears away, only to find more taking their place. Because in the end she was weak after all. She was…

Someone knocked on the door downstairs, making Araj wipe away those tears with even more frustration. “Yeah?” she sniffled. With her blanket she tried to wipe her face clean, though she ended up failing once more, just before the steps came up the stairs.

Aurelia was carrying a tray with some bread and cold meat on it. Her forehead was in a frown, as she looked at Araj. “How… How are you feeling today?”

“Better,” Araj replied, even though her shaky voice proofed her to be a liar. “The wound has healed. I am just…” She hated, that she ended up loosing that battle, sniffling again.

For a long moment, Aurelia just looked at her. Then she brought that tray over. “I brought you some food. I thought… I thought you needed it. Being… mortal, I mean. You need to eat, right?”

“Yes.” Araj nodded. “T-thank you.” Sitting up properly, she pulled that tray close, starting to eat.

Another awkward silence fell between them, before Aurelia moved the wooden stool in the room, sitting down on it. Once more Araj saw, how the tiefling took her tail, running her fingers over the tip of it.

Araj did not say anything, instead just eating some of the bread and the meat, that was salted well, but could’ve used some spice.

She could feel this awkwardness in the silence. It was not made better by the way that she was still sniffling. Lolth, why was she so weak suddenly? Why could she no longer suppress it?

Trying to distract from it, she took a deep breath. “I… Your brother. I mean… The gnome.”

“You mean Yousen?” Aurelia asked.

“Yeah. Him. I think.” Araj took a deep breath. “He said… He said you were close with both Astarion and with… with the youngest of you. Leon, he said.”

Aurelia did not look directly at her. Instead her red eyes were fixed on her own tail still. “I… I was. Though I am honest. I do not know whether… I think Astarion might hate me. I don’t know. I was… I was horrible towards him, you know?”

Araj raised an eyebrow. “You were?”

The vampire girl just nodded, then sighed. “I told you… Cazador… He… He would torture us for any perceived mistake. And I was so… I was always so clumsy. And… One day, early on… I had broken something and when Cazador wanted to punish me for it… Astarion… He claimed it had been him. He… He took that punishment for me.” Her voice was silent, as she was speaking. But there were so many emotions in her eyes. “But I had to be a bitch about it, of course. I… Next time something happened, I blamed him. And he… He just went with it.” A tremble went through her body. “I don’t know how often Cazador… How often he punished him for me.”

Araj considered this, as she ate the last bit of bread.

The truth was, of course, that she did not really know Astarion. She had met him a couple of times during this entire Absolute-disaster, but most she knew about him was, that he hated her guts. Which was fair, she assumed.

She had considered him to be haughty and a bit of an asshole, too, though. Most certainly not as someone, who would get himself tortured for someone else. But it was not as if she had ever been very good in reading people, had she?

“You haven’t seen him, since he killed that Cazador-guy, right?” she asked.

Aurelia shook her head. “No. He… He saved us that day. He saved us.” Now it was her turn to take a shaky breath. “And he… He told us to go here. I… I know he was traveling with this group of folks at the time, but I do not know who they were. Cazador… He told us to get him back. But those people protected him. So… I guess they were his friends?” Then she dared to look over to Araj. “You know who they were?”

Araj could not help a little smile at this. “I know some of it, yeah.”

Even she was able to see the hopefulness in Aurelia’s eyes. Hope to get some answers, no doubt. Answers that had been kept from her for a while.

Araj sighed. “So… I do not know all of it. But… There had been a conspiracy in Baldur’s Gate. Going on for a while. I don’t know how it got to be, even though I… I used it for my research, naturally. But… The long and short of it is, that somehow some people got to control an illithid Elderbrain, and somehow used magic to make illithid tadpoles go into stasis. From all I gather Astarion and his friends… They had a tadpole in their brains. And they were trying to get rid of it.” She looked at the tiefling vampire. “I can imagine that it was that tadpole that made him… I mean, I know he ran around in sunlight. So I assume that it somehow blocked some of his vampiric weaknesses out or something.”

“And those other people?”

“I don’t know much about them,” Araj said. “One of them was… quite helpful in my research, though.” Not that it did really matter, of course. And she had known that much all along. “Though he was also quite protective of your brother.” It had been annoying, really. “All I know is, that they ended up fighting that Elderbrain over the Chionthar. They won though. And… I think Astarion stayed with the man. The helpful one.”

“So he really is safe?” Aurelia asked.

“I think so. Yeah.” Araj was surprised to see a smile on Aurelia’s face at those words.

The vampire took a deep breath. “That’s good. I… When he did not come… I didn’t know whether it was, because he hated us, or because he had died. I don’t want him to die.”

And him hating her would be preferable? Araj was not certain, whether she could understand.

“That other brother of yours,” she said. “Leon. What happened to him? I know… He killed someone?”

Aurelia was silent for a moment, then she sighed. “Yeah. He killed Darylia. He…” She took a deep breath, clearly trying to sort her thoughts. “Darylia was always so obsessed with the idea of curing our vampirism, you know? She was… She was working with medicine.” For a moment she pursed her lips. “She might have liked you, you know?”

“She would?”

“Yes. She was… scientifically minded, as she called it.” Aurelia gave a deep sigh. “Well, Leon had a child. He was the youngest of us. He had a human child. Well, she was almost grown by the time she… The thing is, she died. Shortly before the ritual. And part of the reason was… That Darylia did something. And so… Leon… The entire time he tried everything to keep that daughter of his safe. And then we escaped and his daughter was dead and… I think he needed to blame someone. So he blamed Darylia. And he… He killed her for it.” Her fingers tensed around the tip of her tail, as a little visible shiver ran down her back.

“He left afterwards?” Araj asked.

“Yeah. Together with some of the other spawn, who did not want to just do what the Gur told us to.”

Araj looked at her, wondering something. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

Aurelia’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh. “I… So many of the spawn here… They are here because of me. And I… I cannot just abandon them, can I?”

“But you said, that many of them hurt you.”

Another shaky sigh came over the tiefling’s lips. “They did.”

Araj looked at her, unsure she was able to understand. She did not dare to ask, but when Aurelia looked in her direction for just a moment, she was sure that Aurelia knew perfectly well what she wanted to ask.

“It is not as if I can… I mean, they… Some of them hurt me. But there are also so many I hurt and I… How can I judge them for it?”

Araj looked at her, not really able to understand. How could she understand it? After all, she had not been hurt in any way like that herself, had she? But those other times other people had tried to hurt her, she had always been quick to deal out punishment in one way or another.

Still, she remembered those days ago, when Aurelia had talked about the things that had happened to her under that old vampire. Things that Araj understood had partly been done by some of the people living here now. And she just did not quite understand, how the vampire girl could just… Keep around some of the people, who had hurt her like that.

“Can… Can I ask you something, too?” Aurelia whispered.

“Sure,” Araj said. “I… I won’t stop you.”

“Your family… Are they really all dead?”

“From all I know… Yeah,” Araj replied. “My mother died about fifty years ago. Ever since then I am the only one who can bring back my family’s name and…” She drew a deep breath. “And restore the House of Oblodra.”

“What happened to everyone?”

“My grandmother got killed by an Underdrake. My one aunt fell into a chasm. My other aunt got killed by some other monster. My cousins got hunted down by some other drow. And my mother got killed just a month after we made it to Baldur’s Gate. By some… I think they were just normal elves.”

“And you have been alone ever since?”

“Yeah,” Araj replied. “I worked on my research. Because it is what I promised. It is what…” What she needed to do. Only that it did not feel right.

Aurelia watched her for a long moment, once more pursing her lips. “You said, you have illithid blood?”

“I… I am honestly not entirely certain,” Araj replied. “But it is… It is what I understand. I… Most of my family’s research got destroyed, when they banished us. And my grandmother did not tell me everything. I did some of my own research, of course, and I do not fully understand how it would’ve happened, given that the illithid kind do not sexually reproduce the same way elves and drow do, but it is my understanding that I do have at least one illithid ancestor.”

Aurelia considered those words for a moment. “Then I guess we are both monsters.”

“You are not a monster.” Araj spoke, before she even thought about it.

“I am pretty sure most people will consider a vampire a monster,” Aurelia said, but Araj shook her head.

“But they are not. They are… I mean you are… You do not even feed on people, do you?”

“If Petras had not been there, I would’ve killed you. Do you understand that?”

And for once Araj dared to look the vampire into her scarlet eyes, remembering the tears she had seen there only a few days ago. “I do,” she said. “But… People kill people too, right? It does not need a monster for that.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Chapter Text

“Aurelia?” Her brother’s voice made her turn around, as she had been sitting on one of the tables.

“Yousen.”

Strangely enough interacting with him was about as awkward as it was to talk to some of her former conquests – those who had hurt her back then. Because he… He had hurt her as well. So many times. In his eagerness to serve Cazador well. He had always tried to impress their master. By doing whatever Cazador wanted, even if it meant torturing them.

Whenever one of the others had gone against Cazador’s wishes, Yousen had cut them open. Something simple in its cruelty. Cutting them open, until their organs would be hanging out of them. Because they could not die. They were not killed by something simple like that.

So yes, having him be here… It felt wrong at times. No matter how much he tried to change. Because he was trying. Aurelia could tell. He tried to take responsibility for them.

“I wanted to hear how you are doing,” he said carefully. “Just… After the thing that has happened with the drow.”

Aurelia tried to smile, though she was not entirely certain, she succeeded. “I… I am doing better by now. Thank you… Thank you for asking.”

His smile was stiff, too. Because things like this did not come easy to either of them. “I was worried. I will admit. It did not seem like you to lose control like that.”

“I know,” she said. Her instinct was, to wrap her arms around her shoulders once more, but she did not. Somewhere inside of her was still the hurt, she had felt in that moment. A hurt that had come with so many layers. “She did apologize, you know?”

“The drow?”

“Yeah. Araj. She… She apologized.” Aurelia took a deep breath. “I heard you talked to her.”

“I did,” he admitted. “I felt…” For a moment he paused, trying to find the right words. “I felt like someone needed to.”

It felt, as if her smile became easier. “Thank you.”

At this he was silent, just smiling. Still, it seemed there were quite a few unsaid words in that smile. Some of which she understood.

The truth about their situation was, that all of it was complicated. Because each single one of them had done so much harm to at least some of the others. There were so many apologies, that were hard to do. So many that were not even realized yet.

It was with Petras, too. Petras, who right now often felt like an outsider in their group. Who often stuck to himself and rarely spoke. Even Aurelia had no idea what was going on in his mind. And she… She did not know whether she could do anything about it. She just knew, that somehow they would figure it out over those next few months. The next few years. They were immortal after all. Truly immortal.

Another pair of steps approached, making her turn, even before the drow spoke up.

“Aurelia?” Araj’s voice was just a bit less self-assured than it had been when she had originally gotten to Grymforge. Then the drow’s gaze found Yousen, too. She took a deep breath. “And you… Yousen, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“I made two more.” Araj got two flasks out of the bag she always seemed to be carrying around. “I… I don’t know if they work. But…” She put the flasks on the desk Aurelia had been sitting at.

“So, you did continue it,” Aurelia noted.

Araj looked at her, frowning now. “As I said…”

“Yes, I know.” Aurelia hesitated for a moment, but then found herself smiling. Maybe she should stop being surprised by the fact that Araj did stay true to her word in the end. And be it out of some sort of alchemist’s honor.

“What are those?” Yousen asked.

“The potions she promised,” Aurelia explained. “She is trying to make something that soothes the hunger, remember?”

Yousen moved over to the desk, taking one of the flasks and smelling it. “It does not smell like blood,” he noted.

“Well, it is a bit more complicated than that,” Araj said. She stayed back, not going to close to them, and clearly being unsure on whether or not to explain this.

Still, Yousen looked at her. “How so?”

“Is it… Do you really wanna know?” Araj asked.

Yousen gave a smirk. “I would like to know with what you are trying to poison me and my siblings, yes.”

“I do not…” It clearly took Araj a moment to understand that he was joking. Still, she could not help to defend herself. “I do not intent to poison you. I… You have to see, nobody has ever synthetized a potion that could satiate a vampire. But I think it should be possible. Because from what I know, you not only are able to drink from sentient creatures, but also animals and monsters, but you can also be satiated from blood that has not been in a living body for a while – and blood of the dead. There are people theorizing that vampires do consume the energy of life – yet, if you were to do that, you could not drink from the dead. And given you do not only drink from sentient beings, it cannot be spiritual energy or essence of soul either. It needs to be a more basic essence of blood. So, in theory it should work if I just am to find out the right essence or mixture of essences. In which case it could be used to feed you and the problem would be solved, without any of you needing to kill for the blood.” It was a whole waterfall of words spilling forth from Araj’s mouth – one that for the first time made Aurelia aware that Araj did indeed think about it. She had thought about it quite a bit by the sound of it.

She could see that Yousen was thinking something similar, too. He had raised an eyebrow now. “So, you really think it is possible.”

“Yes,” Araj replied. “It should be possible. I… My thought was to try it with the base essences of blood first. And then try it with mixtures. It is probably not quite as simple, given that nobody else has so far managed to do it. But… It should be possible, of that I am convinced.”

Yousen considered her words for a moment, before sniffing one of the bottles again. “And what essence is this?”

“This is the essence of growth,” she replied. “The one I gave Aurelia last time was the essence of energy.” Then she pointed at the second bottle. “That one is the essence of regeneration.”

“I see,” Aurelia said. “What… Are there other essences?”

“Well, two other essences commonly found in blood are soul and elemental essences,” Araj said. “But I am mostly certain it is neither of those. Soul flees dead blood rather quickly. And since you can drink any blood, it should not be an elemental essence. Though one might try something with an essence of earth, given that it is the most common elemental blood essence.”

Yousen chuckled at this. “You really are a nerd about this, aren’t you?”

“A what?” The drow raised an eyebrow, making him laugh only more. Then, without a further word, he just drowned the potion, closing his eyes to consider how he was feeling.

“It is… tingling a bit,” he noted. “But not… I do not think it is helping the hunger.” He grimaced over this. “Too bad.”

Aurelia looked at the potion she was still holding. “Should I try this one?”

“If you want to,” the drow replied. “It would be helpful for the research, if it was not the same person testing the potions. This way I could make sure that I have observed the essences separately first.”

Aurelia looked over to her, then she smiled. “Alright. I… I will trust, that you won’t poison me.” With that she opened the cork and smelled the bottle. There was something strangely floral about it. Then she downed the content, feeling it warm the inside of her throat. It was… soothing. But maybe that was what “the essence of regeneration” would do. It sounded like something that would be soothing for sure.

For a moment she just closed her eyes and waited, trying to observe what her body would do. The hunger was still there. It was definitely still there. And still, even it felt somehow soothed. Not fully gone, just made a bit better. A bit easier to deal with. Or was it just her mind?

“How is it?” Araj asked carefully.

Aurelia frowned. “I think it is doing… something. It is not doing away with the hunger. But… It feels just a bit… It feels better. Just a bit.”

Instantly Araj had a small leatherbound notebook taken out, scribbling down. “Interesting. Can you describe it further?”

“What?”

“How you are feeling, I mean.”

“I…” Aurelia paused once more, trying to ascertain the answer to this question. “It does feel soothing. In more than one way. It feels like it is soothing the hunger, but something else too. I just… I am not quite sure what it is. Something…” She frowned, trying to think of a good word. “Something more animalistic. I don’t know. It is there, still. But it is… It is better than before.”

“That’s good,” Araj said. “I think, at least. That’s good.” A smile showed on her face and for the first time since she had gotten here, that smile… It seemed genuine. Actually genuine. “Maybe this really can be done,” she muttered to herself.

And once more Yousen was smirking. “Your surprise at this is so comforting,” he noted sardonically.

Araj looked over to him. “Again, this has never been done before. So I would ask you to value the fact that already there has been… a result.”

“A single result,” he teased. “That is… truly amazing.”

Somehow even Aurelia could not help a laugh at this. “Don’t mind him. He is just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“Whatever would you be talking about, my darling sister?” he asked, making her roll her eyes.

“No. Really,” she said. “This… I think this is doing something. So maybe…” She looked at Araj with a somewhat hopeful smile. “Maybe this can be done after all.”

Chapter Text

Araj was well aware of how hungry her grandmother’s eyes were, as the older drow was watching her. She tried to ignore it, tried to focus exclusively on her work, dealing with that stubborn dwarf. She had made sure to tie the dwarven man down, before she had started her experiments, but it did not stop him from trying to fight back.

He screamed against the gag, which she had put into his mouth after he had bitten her. He struggled against the leather binds. There was this spark inside of his eyes. And anger. So much anger.

Well, it was not as if anger got you anything in life, did it?

She pulled another vial of blood, before emptying it into the filtration. He was a dwarf, of course. As such his blood had some essences of earth. Stronger than even with the other people of Faerûn – or the Underdark for that matter. But it was not quite, what she was after. Not quite…

With the help of a smaller vacuum chamber, she filtrated the blood quickly, letting it drip into another flask, where it was going to react with one of the salts. The reaction created a few bluish flames – something that was always quite interesting to her. After all, there was no fire in this blood, and still somehow it would burn.

Yet, it was beneath the salts, that the essence would further drip down, would mix up with another filtration.

The dwarf once more struggled against the leather binding him. He groaned in anger, as he could not get lose. Araj knew better than to pay him any mind. He was just a part of her experiment. That was all the role he had to play in this.

After mixing with the other liquid, the blood was filtrated again, before dripping down into yet another vial. The final result of this experiment.

“I always knew you had a good mind,” her grandmother noted, as the mixture still was dripping down. “The brightest maybe.” She sighed, as she waited for the reaction to finish. “Too bad you were not blessed with other skills.”

It was the same thing her grandmother kept saying. And Araj only half understood what it was meant. She had been supposed to have powers of a sort, but yet had never been blessed with them. Not that it really mattered. Right?

She loosened the vial from the chemical apparatus. “It should be finished now.”

“Well, then,” her grandmother said, nodding towards the dwarf. “Let’s see whether it does, what it is supposed to do.”

Araj sighed, as she woke from the memory. She was remembering her family a whole lot during those last few days and nights. So many fragmented memories, that she could at times not even fully make sense of.

She took a deep breath, before getting up.

Somehow it was her grandmother quite often in those memories. Strangely not her mother, even though she had been around for so much longer – had been closer to Araj too. Though there was no doubt that it had always been her grandmother who had been responsible for the direction Araj’s life had taken. She had been the closest thing that Araj had known to a proper matriarch.

She would have to return to Menzoberranzan eventually, wouldn’t she?

No matter what Aurelia said. She would have to make her way to that place. Because it was, what she had been made to promise to her grandmother. She was the only surviving member of her family. If she would not do it, the House Oblodra would be forever fallen.

Still, she had promised these vampires to solve this problem for them. To make sure they would be able to feed in some way. And as she had said: She was a woman of her word. She would find a way to keep the vampires fed. Before she had done that, she would not go. Before she had taken care of those troubles…

She didn’t know.

She got up from her bedroll. Her bed in Baldur’s Gate had been a lot more comfortable than this, though she also did remember her grandmother, who had made her trance on the floor so often. ‘A drow does not need a comfortable bed, girl,’ she would then say. ‘Drow do not sleep. And a bed makes you too lazy either way.’

Why was she thinking about her grandmother so much?

Maybe it was simply, because she was back in the Underdark, and now remembered those things that lay more than fifty years in the past. Half a century was not that long ago for a drow, but it was long enough that she had not thought actively about it quite that often.

She thought about what her research had brought her so far. It seemed that the Essence of Regeneration had done the most of all she had tried.

If she remembered correctly, vampires needed to feed to be able to regenerate. So maybe that was somehow connected. In some ways one could think about aging as a death by many tiny cuts. Hence it would stand to reason, that this could be connected, too. Maybe vampires did just regenerate the tiny injuries that came through their age by regenerating as well.

She could not say for certain, and she was afraid that unless she found an orcish vampire, it would be hard to properly come to conclusion about it. Aging was by design a very slow process after all. So understanding how it worked – and how the vampiric nature counteracted it – would never be that easy, she feared.

After getting dressed, she went down to the ground level of her little tower, looking at her notebook.

The question was, what she should try next. While Aurelia had said, that the Essence of Regeneration had done something to soothe that ache inside of her, it had not fully gotten rid of it. So there was something missing. The big question was, if it was one of the other essences, or something else that Araj was currently missing.

After all, she was quite aware of the fact, that outside of the alchemical essences, there was also a chemical aspect to blood. Blood had some chemical parts, like iron, and protein. Could it be that vampires needed some of that as well?

Technically it should be possible for her to create a potion that had all the chemical aspects of blood, and some of the Essence of Regeneration. It would be a bit of a hassle, but it would be possible for her to do. Maybe she should just try it like that, and once she could tell if that made any difference, she could focus on the alchemical parts.

She sat down in front of her working bench, thinking about it for a moment.

It was not a perfect plan, but it would be a start no doubt. It would get her somewhere at the very least. Because she was still fairly certain that what the vampires were feeding on was not the Essence of Soul, and not the Essence of Earth either. She could try it with the second, but no alchemist had ever managed to make the Essence of Soul stay in anything that was not living.

It was silly, really. One would think that at least some wizards would have succeeded in that. There were wizards, who also did alchemy after all. And wizards could transfer an actual soul into a non-animated object. So one would think that it should be possible to make sure the Essence of Soul remained in blood or parts of a dead body. But no such luck.

Araj had tried it herself, of course. Sadly, her own magical abilities were not the best. She just had not a good connection to the Weave in any way. She had tried to do magic, but somehow the right parts never seemed to connect.

Maybe she had no talent.

Or maybe Mystra had cursed her in some way. After all, Mystra would probably not be the first goddess to despise her.

For a moment, she closed her eyes and breathed. Then she got out some of the crystalized elements from her bag, looking through her collection. She knew in general what was part of normal human or elven blood. Of course she knew. Blood was her specialty. She just had to mix it together.

And thankfully, while she could not properly invoke almost any spell herself, she was able to activate runes. So she prepared her workstation, and started to mix weigh out the different elements, to mix them, and alter their consistency.

The red color of blood was mostly due to certain parts of the blood reacting to oxygen, the stuff that people breathed. It was fascinating, really. From all the scientifically minded could tell, blood mainly existed in bodies to help move oxygen around the body, as oxygen was needed to produce energy, and use up energy.

This was true, when a person wanted to make a fire. It was true as well, for any living body. Or most living bodies.

She wondered if it was true for vampires as well. After all, even in the vampire’s body there would be blood being somehow pushed through the veins. Oh, she kinda wanted to know how this happened, given that vampires had no heartbeat. Still, they bled, and Araj very well knew that dead bodies did not bleed, not really.

Once a body was dead, there was no pressure in the veins, so while some blood would drip out of the body, it would not actually bleed. It was, why you had to hang dead bodied upside down, when you wanted their blood. She had struggled with this issue before after all.

So, given that vampires bled, something had to keep the blood moving through their body. She wondered, what it was.

Strange, how she had never thought about this before, but now that she was down here and surrounded by the undead kind, it seemed like such an obvious question. It was one of the questions about vampires that were not asked often enough.

Obviously, the undead affliction was one, that was magical in origin. It might have to do with necronomical magic, though she was not fully certain of that part either. Because from all that was known vampires did in fact possess a soul. Undead normally didn’t. Yet, there was no doubt about the fact that by every other definition of the word, vampires were in fact undead.

It was fascinating. Truly fascinating. Maybe one of the gods had once created vampires. That would probably make the most sense. Maybe they had been the creation of one of the old, and forgotten gods of the dead.

If only there was a way to find out. There probably wasn’t, though, was there?

She kept thinking about it, as she was weighing chemicals and making notes, mixing everything together bit by bit. Given not everything was easily broken down and absorbed into a liquid, it took quite a bit, though Araj barely noticed the time pass.

Her mind loved these challenges though. It was good to find new things to research and solve.

“Araj?” The voice made her almost jump up from her chair, as it spoke to her so suddenly. She had not heard the door open.

She looked up from the flasks in front of her for just one moment. “Oh. Aurelia. It’s you.” She returned her focus to the flasks.

“What are you doing?” the vampire girl asked.

“I just had a thought as I go up this morning,” Araj said. “I wanted to make sure that the missing element is not a chemical one, rather than an alchemical one. So, I am trying to mix up a potion that has all the chemical aspects of blood.”

“Chemical aspects of blood?” Aurelia echoed, looking at the rather brownish looking mixture in the flask in front of Araj.

“Yes. You know. Minerals and metals, fats, carbohydrates and such,” Araj replied.

Again Aurelia’s gaze drifted to the flask. “How long have you been working on that?”

“I am not quite certain,” Araj said. “A few hours, I think.” Admittedly, her sense of time was not the best on a normal day, when she was working. And after having gotten used to telling the time by the movement of the stars and the sun on the surface world, it had gotten even harder, now that she was back down here.

Aurelia sniffed at Araj, in a way that reminded Araj of a rather annoying street dog. “When is the last time you have eaten?”

“I don’t know,” Araj muttered.

“You smell hungry.”

Araj shrugged. “I am fine. I want to finish this, just to make sure, that…”

“I think, you need to eat,” Aurelia said.

“Can’t I just…”

“Counter question,” Aurelia said softly. “Will this fail if you leave it alone for half an hour?”

Araj looked at the flask, that was rotating with the help of a rune, she had invoked. She sighed, not wanting to stop this right now. “No?”

“Then I will say, that you are mortal after all. And that you need to eat.”

Chapter Text

No, admittedly Aurelia could not make a whole lot of sense of this woman. Araj was an asshole. For better or worse, Aurelia was rather good at identifying those, and be it just that while bringing in prey for Cazador, she had been torn between going for the assholes, as they deserved it, and avoiding them to protect herself.

Now she was sitting across Araj in one of the lower halls of Grymforge, while Araj was eating one of the rather spicy soups that the Gur would cook. Aurelia could tell it was spicy, as the soup smelled rather spicy. She and her kind rarely got to eat it, as it was hard to get ingredients down here, and vampires did not need to eat to survive.

She watched Araj, as the woman was eating. Right now, she was not even wearing her make-up, and her hair looked messy. If Aurelia was going to make a guess, Araj had gotten up from her sleep – or trance, probably – and had started with that experiment. Because despite being an asshole, she clearly was indeed interested in helping them, and Aurelia could just not figure out why.

Just as she was not entirely certain why she was even concerned about the woman eating. Araj was how old exactly? Probably more than a hundred years, if Aurelia knew anything about how elves and drow aged. She should know what was best for herself.

It was only now, that Araj looked at her, pausing for a moment. “Why are you still here?”

“Here?” Aurelia asked, frowning now.

“Here. Watching me. I thought you did not like me. I thought…” For a moment Araj paused, before speaking: “I thought I was an asshole.”

“You are an asshole,” Aurelia replied. “But I guess…” She, too, broke off in the middle of her sentence. “To be frank, I don’t know. I guess, I do currently know quite well, what it is to be hungry. And I do not wish it on anyone.”

“I see.” Araj broke off a piece of bread, before tipping it in the last bit of soup, eating it then. She drank a bit of water, too, before looking at Aurelia. “I am surprised in a way. I have read, that vampires do need to feed at least once a month, or they will go into a blood frenzy. Not feeding them for three months, and they will die.”

Aurelia looked at the woman, trying to ascertain what she was trying to say with it. Was she disappointed of the lack of a blood frenzy? Or was she just stating this as a fact? It was at times surprisingly hard to read the tone she was speaking in. In the end, Aurelia sighed. “I am not sure. But I know we can go much longer without blood.” She paused for a moment. “There was one time… I was not around back then, but I know of it. There was one time, that Cazador sealed off Astarion in a tomb, where he was unable to feed for a whole year. Astarion still survived. Though Yousen says that it was there that his hair turned white.”

“Oh.” Araj looked up. “I always assumed it was natural. I know that some high elves have naturally silver hair.”

Aurelia shrugged. “I just know what Yousen told me. But…”

“Hmm.” Araj changed her position on the simple stool that was available here. After all, those Sharrans having build the place had cared for some things, but not the comfort of the people living here. Maybe it was because of the entire philosophy of absence in the Sharran believes. “I do have to wonder, if that Cazador has found some magical way to give all of you more endurance – of it indeed all my studies on the secrets of vampires have been wrong.” She gave a sigh. “Too bad your master is dead.”

“Too bad?” Aurelia narrowed her eyes.

“No! No. I didn’t mean…” Araj sighed. “I am sorry. I did not mean to offend. I just… I would have loved to learn more, and…” She shook her head. “I am sorry.”

Aurelia looked at her. She just did not get this woman. She did not get her at all. Did she really never think about what her words would mean?

In the end, though, Aurelia bit her lip. “It is… fine.”

Araj looked at her, and there was something in her eyes, that Aurelia had not seen there before that night a few days ago, when the drow had returned on the boat. A hurt. An insecurity she could not quite name.

“Has any of you ever gone into a blood frenzy?” Araj asked, quite carefully.

“Yes, and no,” Aurelia replied. “Some of the seven thousand. Of those that we did not know about… Not me or my siblings. Even when I smell blood, I do feel the urge to feed, but it is not as overwhelming as it seems to be for some of them.”

“Interesting…” Araj almost absentmindedly got out a small book to note this down, making Aurelia frown.

“What do you write this down for?”

“I am mostly…” It seemed Araj needed to find the right words. “Look, while I read a whole lot about vampires, there is the simple fact that most full-fledged vampires keep their secrets close to heart, and will rather die, than share those secrets with any mortal soul. There have been some wizards doing research on this, of course, and at times succeeding to bring a vampire into their control, but obviously any information extracted under torture is not always reliable and…” When she saw the expression in Aurelia’s face, she stopped. “I am sorry.”

“You do not really notice it, do you?” Aurelia muttered.

“Notice what?”

“The way you speak about those things. Abducting someone. Torture. Your eyes light up, when you talk about it.”

“It is not because of the torture,” Araj said. “Just… Vampires. I do find vampires fascinating. I always have found them fascinating. And I… You know, when I was a girl, we had a few books on vampires, in regards to their relation to necromancy and alchemy. And I was just so fascinated by it all. I dreamed of being taken away by a vampire and turned…”

“Why?” Aurelia looked at her.

“Because it would have been so fascinating.”

“Fascinating?” Aurelia huffed. “You are aware that if a vampire had turned you, you would have been turned into a spawn like me. A slave, or at best a soldier and body guard for your undead master.”

Araj gave yet another sigh. “I know. I understand this. I do. But back then… You don’t quite know what it was like. We were living apart from everyone else, and there was nobody, but my grandmother. And…” She broke off.

Aurelia once more was watching her. Of course, she was quite aware of the fantasies that some mortals engaged with, when it came to vampires and other creatures. She had seen some of those books as well. Books in which an undead lover came to make some mortal man or woman their own forever. Oh, if only reality followed such silly ideas.

“Can I ask you something?” Araj asked after a while.

Aurelia paused, before looking at her. “That depends.”

“I… What kind of abilities do you have. You spawn, I mean. What kind of abilities do you have?”

“You mean like… What?”

“Powers,” Araj said. “Vampire powers. I mean, obviously you do have the regeneration, that much I gather from your stories of Cazador torturing you. But what else? I’ve read, that the ability to spiderclimb is quite common among spawns. But I heard some have abilities to shapechange as well.”

“None,” Aurelia said.

“What?”

“None,” Aurelia repeated. “We never had any abilities. Just regeneration. Nothing else.”

Araj shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Aurelia barked. “I have been living this existence for sixty years. I would know if I had any powers, wouldn’t I?”

Araj paused for a moment, thinking about it clearly. Then she looked at Aurelia. “Would you?”

“Of course I would,” Aurelia replied.

Araj’s face said so very clearly, that she was thinking something else. “No, really. Would you know?”

“As I said: I think I would know if I had any abilities,” Aurelia said.

“Have you ever tried to spiderclimb?”

For a moment Aurelia certain wanted to protest against this. Because yes, she would know if she had abilities. She had been a vampire for more than six decades. But then she paused.

The truth was, that she never actually had tried. Because… Well, she never had considered that she could have that ability. Why would she? After all she had never been told that she could have any ability like this.

Cazador had never told them. Just as he had never told them how strong they were. She had only realized it, when she had nearly killed Araj.

She looked at her fingers, that were clawed. Sure, tieflings usually had claws, but hers were sharper than that of even the average tiefling.

What if Araj was right?

Aurelia sighed. “I have not.” But it could not be right, could it? She could not have existed for so long without knowing. Ha, the others were even older. They would know, right? They would know if they had those abilities. “I never have tried.”

“You should,” Araj simply said. “From all I know, most vampire spawn can spiderclimb, and also turn into a gaseous form. In fact, there is the common theory, that flowing water only hurts vampires because their instinct is to turn into a gaseous form, did you know?”

Aurelia paused. “Don’t make it sound as if I am some sort of frog in a test tube, please.”

Araj blinked in confusion, but then nodded. “Alright. I am sorry.”

“Fuck…” Aurelia moved her fingers, thinking about it. But how would she know? How would she use a power she had never known she had?

Cazador could not have kept that a secret from them though, could he?

She was not sure. But she was rather certain, that he would try. He had always tried to keep them weak. To make them believe they were useless. He would do something like that, wouldn’t he?

“If… If I could do that… How would I know?” she asked.

“You try it?” Araj shrugged.

“And… How?”

“Well, how about you try… How about you try to climb something. Like a wall. Ideally something pretty steep you could not normally climb.”

Aurelia did consider this for a moment. Had she ever been in a situation where she would have accidentally used this? It could not be that easy, could it? If she had had that ability all along, shouldn’t she have somehow known?

But now… Now she wanted to try. Now she just… Darn it.

She got up from the stool she had been sitting on. “You… You will excuse me, right?”

Araj paused for a moment. “Can I come watch?”

Aurelia was not quite certain of this. Because something told her, she would fail miserably – and she did not want anyone to watch that failure. But at the same time… Maybe it would be better for someone to be there. And be it just to put her back together.

Did it have to be Araj, though?

Darn it.

Darn it all. She sighed. “Fine.”

Chapter Text

The rock wall was pretty much vertical. It was to the side of the little beach behind Grymforge, and now Aurelia was standing in front of it.

Araj wished she had a way to actually know the woman’s thoughts. Of course, had she been prepared, she could have brought the right potion – but she had not come prepared and now, all she could do was watch.

Aurelia just stood there in front of the rock, while Araj waited for something to happen. She was not even quite sure what she wanted to happen. But she was certain – almost certain – that Aurelia had those abilities.

Araj had read quite a few books about vampires, and while most certainly some of them had at least exaggerated the truth and embellished it, she was certain that it was not all a lie. Vampires would have some abilities. Sure, they were not able to fly – at least spawn were not able to do that – but they should be able to do… something.

Now Aurelia took a deep breath and took another step closer to the rock wall.

She was pausing once more, but then reached out to a small ledge, pulling herself up. She managed, too, though this was climbing – not spiderclimbing.

Araj did not comment on it. She watched the woman do it. Working her way up the wall bit by bit. She had clearly some enhanced strength and endurance. While she might not be fully physically trained, she managed to get up there quite well, probably a lot better than Araj would have done. Yet, it was still normal climbing. Until…

Araj was not quite certain what happened. Either Aurelia slipped off the wall, or maybe a stone had become loose. Her foot suddenly was dangling in the air. It happened too fast. She lost her balance, suddenly dangling from one hand. She slipped and then…

A yelp. An instinctual yelp arising from the fall.

Her hands tried to find purchase. That much Araj could see. And then… They simply did. Sticking to the rock as if by magic. Her feet did, too. She found purchase even without there being anything. She simply stuck to the wall.

As she was supposed to.

Araj found herself smiling, as she realized this. “See! You can do it! Spiderclimb! You can do it!”

Aurelia’s shoulders were so clearly moving with heavy breaths, as she was slowly coming to terms with this. She moved her hand up, clearly trying out this ability. It took her a moment to actually get the quite literal hang of it, but then she pushed herself up against the rock. “I… I am doing it,” she muttered. “I am really doing it!”

A laugh came over her lips, that was somewhat hysterical. She moved faster now, easily climbing up the entire cliff – before making her way down even easier.

Once she landed on the ground, she looked at her hands. Another laugh shook her shoulders. “Fuckin asshole.”

“What? What have I…”

“Not you. Cazador.” Aurelia looked at her hands still. “He fucking… I mean… Were we able to do that the entire time?”

“I mean, yeah…” Araj was not certain what she was supposed to answer on this. “Probably. You might have other powers, too. I just…” She paused, thinking about it. “I am not quite sure how to activate them. But… I mean, I can only rely on the books I have read. But there is a chance that you do have some sort of shapeshifting ability. Maybe some other powers, too.”

Aurelia looked at her, and for a moment Araj was really not sure if the woman was angry at her. But then, she gave a sigh. “I really don’t know what to… I… I don’t know what to think.”

Araj’s first instinct was to question whether she had never read any books about her condition. The words were already on her lips, but somehow she managed to catch herself.

No. This was not helpful, was it? There was a good chance that this Cazador had really tried to keep that information away from his spawn. And she understood that it was quite common among those older vampires. Full vampires were often quite jealous about their powers, and they would expect their spawn to be willing to steal them. So yes, it made sense. She guessed in some way it made sense that they had never learned.

Though Araj was still not sure what to say now. She paused. “If you want to, we can look through my books. You know. To find what kind of powers you could have. I don’t know everything – and I don’t know what is true and what was made up. But I can try to help. I think… I think I would like to help.”

For a moment Aurelia looked at her, some doubt showing in her face. But then she managed a smile. “Do…” She licked her lips, as she thought about the actual question she wanted to ask. “Do you have that book on you?”

“I do. In my tower. I… Do you wanna see?”

Aurelia was still clearly uncertain, but in the end she nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Soon enough they were back at the tower, where the half-started experiment was still going.

A part of Araj just wanted to get back to it, but instead she went to her bag of holding, her hand almost automatically finding its way into it. She knew her books all by the feeling of their binding. It did not take her too long to find the two she was looking for, getting them out of the bag. “Here.” She gave both books to Aurelia. “Those are… Well, I am assuming they are not fictional. From all I gather at least.”

Aurelia looked at the books. One of them was bound in black leather, the other in simple fabric. This one was particularly worn thin at the back. “Thank you.”

She paused for a moment, before sitting down by the side of the room.

Araj was not certain if she wanted to read those books here now – or would sooner or later leave to go to the main building. She sat at her workspace, but did not return to her work, no matter how it was almost physically painful to not do that. She waited for the other woman to say something, but it was several minutes, until Aurelia looked up.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I…” It was just this one word, that faded into the silence just a moment later, as she was so clearly running out of things to say.

Araj hesitated. “You… You said you have been a vampire for sixty years.”

Aurelia looked at her. “Yes.”

“How did it happen? If that is alright for me to ask. How did Cazador turn you? How did he find you?”

Aurelia was silent for a long while, her eyes once more wandering to the books in her hands. She was silent for so long, that Araj was almost certain she would not answer at all, but then she did. “What do you know about tieflings?”

“I just know that it is people who have bloodties to the lower planes,” Araj said. “I heard that some might have a devil in their ancestry, but others might just end up with those features just because their grandfather was a warlock. I know that a tiefling is more likely to have a tiefling offspring, though they don’t always…”

“Yes…” Aurelia sighed. “I was born as the only tiefling child to a human family in the Outer City. My family had a farm. And they never knew from where that tiefling blood came from. But they thought it must be some sort of curse.”

Araj looked at the woman. Of course she was vaguely aware that a lot of people had a lot of prejudice towards tieflings. While she had not paid a whole lot of attention to the goings on when it came to the surface world, it had been hard to ignore this simple fact. Even she had heard of the fall of Elturel, too, and how the tieflings of the city had been exiled. It had been hard to ignore, with everything else going on.

“Did your family…” She was not even certain how to phrase it. “Did they abuse you or something?”

“They mostly just treated me as the black sheep of the family,” Aurelia said. “They did not really abuse me. But they also…” She broke off, reconsidering what she was saying. “My brothers were most certainly more loved than I was.”

Araj was not even certain what to say. To her as a drow it seemed unreasonable to love a son more than a daughter, but she guessed that the people of the surface really were quite different from the drow, weren’t they?

A weird silence fell between them, and it seemed that Aurelia was done telling her story. At least for a moment. But then she looked at Araj suddenly. “Do you know where I got these scars?”

Araj frowned. Of course she would not know. She could tell that it was burn scars, but other than that?

“I don’t,” she muttered. “How would I?”

“When I was… I honestly am not sure how old I was. Something around twenty, I guess. My older brother had his first child, though. And the child, she was a tiefling too. And then my grandmother decided that it was my fault. And they… They decided to extinguish that part of the bloodline. They… They locked me in a shed and set it on fire.”

“But I heard that… I heard tieflings are more resistant against fire.”

“I was,” Aurelia said, her voice now quite flat. “That’s why I survived. I ran that day. Into the city. I don’t know if they ever knew I survived.” She sighed. “I somehow managed to get by. Nobody came looking for me. I think… I think Cazador noticed me during that time. He waited for me one night. And he offered me… power.”

“Wait. He asked you?”

“Yes,” Aurelia muttered bitterly. “Only to then hold it against me again and again. That it was a fate I had chosen for myself.”

Araj looked at the woman. At the burn scars on her face. At the red eyes, that at some point had probably been yellow or orange. The horns. The red skin. She was pretty in a way – but not the usual way. The scars were too noticeable for that.

She had never met that Cazador, and as it was right now she found it hard to imagine the man. And yet… She could at least somewhat see that he had done a lot of damage.

She was not good with this entire empathy thing. She knew she was not. But she understood at least that this… Well, those spawn were all suffering in some ways. And no matter how fascinating it was, she could see that there was pain.

She might not understand that pain, but at the very least she could see it. She just did not know how to react to it.

The vampire’s red eyes flickered over to her, and for a moment it was as if Araj’s breath was caught.

She knew she should say something. So in the end, she said the first thing that came to her mind: “I… I am sorry.”

Chapter Text

It was fascinating. But no, that word sounded so wrong to describe this. It was infuriating to read the books.

Aurelia had known – of course she had known – that Cazador had in some way feared them. She had not realized it, but she had known it. And he had been right of course, because in the end he had died by Astarion’s hand. It was just so unreal, because even now, three months later, she could barely believe how close it had been. They had almost died, their souls sacrificed to the hells. Had Astarion not brought those heroes with him… They would be dead now, and their souls forever bound to the hells.

And still, it made so little sense to her. What had Cazador expected? He had tortured them. He had tortured them all. Of course they would resent him eventually. You did not get to torture someone, without them learning to resent you. Usually one time was enough. And he had done it again and again.

She gave a shaky sigh. It was because of this, that she knew that Astarion would resent her, too. Because she had made him take her torture more than once, had blamed him for her own mistakes so often.

The books spoke about vampire powers and how they would manifest. There were certain powers that were exclusive to full vampires, but even spawn usually would develop some, especially when they managed to grow old. Even she with her half century in age should have certain powers. Shapeshifting was among them. She just had to find out how to activate it.

“What are you reading?” someone asked, their voice rather grumpy.

She turned around to find Violet standing behind her, her hair white, falling loosely over her shoulders and hiding her pointy ears.

She had her arms crossed, so clearly a bit stiff and distanced. Because she and Aurelia… They had never quite seen eye to eye for reasons not quite related to Cazador, had they?

Aurelia looked at her for a moment, before returning her attention to the book. “A book.”

“I can see that,” Violet said. “What kind of book.”

“A book about vampires.” Aurelia did never know how to act around either Violet or Petras. Violet, because she had been always cold towards her – and had made no secret that it was because of her bloodline – and Petras, because… Because Petras simply was an asshole.

Violet paused for a moment, before going over and sitting down next to Aurelia. “Where did you find that?”

“Araj,” Aurelia said. “She gave it to me.”

“The drow?”

“Yes, the drow.” Aurelia sighed, before closing the book. She looked at her vampiric sister. “It turns out that she knows maybe more about vampires than… us.”

“What?” Violet now looked at the worn-out book, that looked not at all like much. “Are you kidding me?”

“No,” Aurelia said. “She… I guess she finds the topic of vampires interesting. And it turns out that Cazador has not taught us a whole lot about being a vampire, did he?”

“He taught us how to shut up and listen…” Violet muttered, bitterness clearly speaking from her voice.

“Exactly,” Aurelia replied. She sighed. “Did you know we could spiderclimb?”

“We cannot.”

“We can,” Aurelia said. “I can. And I am fairly sure so can everyone else. I… I tried it.”

Now the elven vampire looked at her. “You did?”

Aurelia nodded slowly, before giving another sigh. She got up, going over to the wall of the rather high room. This wall was fully smooth, with nothing to hold onto. But since finding out about her skill two days ago, she had tried out her power a bit, and it was surprisingly easy to do. She had to get her mind into the right mood, but once she did it was easy. She could simply crawl up the wall, like an insect or spider. It was off, and yet…

She did not climb high. Maybe three meters, before jumping off, landing on the ground.

Then she looked at Viola. “See. It is simple.”

Violet just stared at her for a long moment, clearly not knowing what to even answer to this. She looked at the wall, as if to ascertain if it was some sort of trick or such. Then she sighed. “Son of a bitch.”

“I know,” Aurelia said. “I… I think we might have other powers, too. He just never told us. I mean… He was afraid of us, wasn’t he?”

Violet did not directly answer to this. Her gaze was pinned at that fall, as she still was trying to make sense of this all. “He was. And he was right. He… Astarion killed him.”

“Yeah,” Aurelia replied.

Violet turned around and picked the book off the table. “And this drow had the book?”

“Yes,” Aurelia said. “She was apparently always fascinated by vampires. So she… Well, she read a lot about our kind.”

A dry chuckle rose in Violet’s throat. “So she really has some sort of vampire kink, doesn’t she?”

“I guess. But… I am not even sure if it is sexual, you know? She…” Aurelia paused for a long moment. “She just wants to be bitten.” She remembered what Araj had said, about wishing that a vampire came to turn her.

It really did not make a whole lot of sense for Aurelia. Though weirdly enough, in some way or another at least her and her siblings had been given a choice by Cazador. Their victims never had, no. But the seven of them? Cazador had given them a choice, and for one reason or another, they all had accepted the “dark gift”, how Cazador had called it. So maybe Araj was not that much crazier than either of them.

“And yet her blood is strange,” Violet muttered. “Ironic.”

Aurelia shrugged. Maybe one could call it ironic, yeah. But in the end… It did not matter either way, did it?

Aurelia could not quite believe it, as she went through the books of the old Sharran library. She looked at her half-formed arm, before shifting her focus, making the mist come back together to form a tangible form.

She really could not believe it. All those abilities and Cazador had kept it all from them.

There was an almost deep-rooted need to laugh about it, but she did not want to, given it felt like madness overtaking her. So instead she just took a deep breath.

Cazador was dead, so no matter how she felt about any of this now, she could not do anything about it. He was dead. He could no longer touch them, could no longer command them, and could no longer hurt any of them. Astarion had killed him, and it was a death that had been deserved. Even though sometimes the man would still come to haunt Aurelia in her nightmares. He was dead. She knew it. Because if he had not actually died, he would have found them by now. He might have not been able to keep track of all his spawn, but he would not loose thousands of them.

There was an irony to this though. Had Araj not come here… How long would it have been until they had found out about any of this? After all, they all had been left uninformed about these powers. It was not that one of them had known. At least of that she was fairly certain.

Astarion had been the oldest spawn to survive from all she knew, and she was certain that he had never used any of these powers.

“What are you doing, child?” someone asked, their voice quite stern.

Recognizing the voice, Aurelia realized something at once. Something, she had not realized before, even though in this moment it suddenly became painfully obvious.

She turned to look at Ulma. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

It was obvious. Yes. The Gur had been monster hunters for generations now. They had hunted their kind for quite a long while. Obviously they would know about these powers. They had known for certain, that all vampires could spiderclimb at the very least. Aurelia was willing to bet that at least one of the Gur that had come with them to the Underdark had made a bad experience with a spiderclimbing vampire before.

Ulma did not ask “What”. No. She seemed to understand quite well what Aurelia was talking about.

She just gave a rather sad smile. “It is hard enough to keep you all under control as it is, don’t you see? If you start using your powers… It would be quite the bother. And I would expect for me and my kin to be dead rather soon.”

“But…” Aurelia wanted to argue with this, though somehow the words got stuck in her throat. Because she knew well, that just over a tenday ago, she had nearly killed Araj in a frenzy. And if she had been able to shapeshift in that situation, especially when the others had tried to hold her back… She had not been in control of herself. She would have used it against them.

“Where did you learn this?” Ulma said, coming over to her. She touched the hand that had a moment before been in an almost gaseous state.

“I… Araj has books about vampires. I learned from those books that we should have the ability. And then I learned from this…” She lifted the Sharran book she had picked up. “I learned how to activate it.”

Ulma looked at the book, before giving a sigh. “Araj has books about vampires?”

“Yes,” Aurelia said. “But please, don’t… I mean…”

The old human woman shook her head. “I thought you despised her. You tried to kill her not too long ago.”

“I did,” Aurelia admitted. “Because she can be horrible at times. But… At other times she can also be quite… Quite nice.” It felt almost wrong to say those words, but somehow they were true. Araj was horrible, but she could be kind at some points. “I think she is really trying to help us.” That at least Aurelia was certain off. “She is really trying to find a way to create an alchemical solution.”

Ulma was silent, taking those words in. “Now we only need to find a solution for vampire spawn, that figure out how to use their powers.”

Aurelia looked at her from the side. “I am sorry. I just… This is the first time, since…” She broke off. Because the Gur had always hunted monsters like them. They had always hunted vampires. And she was not quite certain whether Ulma even saw her as a person or a monster. She might not be entirely wrong about the second one.

“This is the first time since Cazador turned me, that I felt like something at least somewhat exiting came from it,” she said. “I know that it might be dangerous, but…”

Another sigh came over Ulma’s lips. “You are a good child. I can tell that much. Despite all the harm you and your siblings have undoubtedly caused. I can see that you probably did not deserve what the old vampire put you through. It is just, that I also have to look out for my own.”

“So you… Will you punish me?”

“No,” Ulma said. She shook her head again. “No. We will just… We will need to find a way to deal with it. And we need to hope that the drow will at the very least succeed.”

Chapter Text

A knock on the door of the tower, that did not even close fully.

Araj did not look up from her work, as she was adjusting the amount of salt on the scale with a small spoon. “Yes?”

The door was opened, and someone came in. She would not stop with her experiment to look who it was, even though some part of her was aware that this kind of carelessness would sooner or later get her killed.

“What are you doing?” She knew the voice. It belonged to the gnome. The gnome of all people. Though somehow his presence did not surprise her. While she could not figure out what he wanted from her, she had gotten to expect that he would check up on her from time to time.

“Something surprisingly mundane,” she muttered, before filling the salt from the scale into a funnel and from there into a flask. She attached the flask to the rest of her construction.

Her first attempt at the artificial blood had not quite turned out right – and she was still trying to understand why.

“Something mundane?” the gnome asked.

She could not help but sigh, realizing that he wanted an explanation. “Before I start chasing after the essences more, I wanted to see if you depend on anything physical in the blood. Iron, potassium, carbon, salts… I don’t know. So, I am trying to mix something that has all mundane parts of blood in it – yet, it does not quite turn out the way I want it too.”

He came up. She could hear and sense it. Then his gaze found the flask in which the brownish mixture was right now moving. “That looks disgusting,” he noted.

“I am quite certain most normal mortal people feel the same about blood,” she muttered, adjusting one of the filters just a little.

“You don’t, though. Do you?”

“No. But I doubt most normal mortals will consider me among their kind.”

From the corner of her eyes she could see, how he was smirking. “Admittedly, no. You do not seem to be quite normal.”

She did not answer to this. Because she knew it. She knew that most people would always consider her to be weird in some way. Because she was drow, because she was of the Spider Queen, but also because of her particular interests. Which once again looped back to the origin of what they had said, right? How people found blood rather disgusting, instead of seeing it was the fascinating substance it actually was.

There was a short silence between them, before Yousen spoke up again. “I heard you allowed Aurelia to borrow an interesting book.”

This was the first thing that actually got Araj to look at the gnome. Of course. She had almost forgotten. If she gave the book to Aurelia, the other woman would tell her vampiric siblings. Just that Araj had not considered this.

She paused for a moment, but then sighed. “Yes, I… I have not realized that you did not even know that you had powers. I…” She broke off, because there was this one thing that she could not quite wrap her head around.

He seemed to sense it, looking up at her. Ha. Looking up, because he was a gnome after all, and he was freaking tiny.

And still, he was maybe one of the few people she could ask this. Because she knew at the very least that of the spawn down here, he was among the oldest.

She paused for another long moment, now feeling herself that things started to be awkward. Then she sighed. “I don’t quite get it. Cazador, I mean. I get that he was bad. That much I understand. But I don’t quite understand everything else. What… What happened?”

The gnome sighed. It was a deep and heavy sigh. He looked around, before finding himself a stool and bringing it over so he could sit down properly. There was some mistrust in his eyes still, but something else, too. She could not make sense of it. She never had been good at reading the faces of people. She had never actually liked it.

“I don’t know the whole story,” he said. “But I know this: Cazador was an elf. And he got turned into a vampire. I don’t quite know by whom, though I do have some knowledge that vampires were apparently always connected to his family. The Szarr family. I don’t know much more, though.

“When he turned me, Astarion had been with him for a few years. And he was quite fearful of him. I don’t know what it was about Astarion, that Cazador always fixated on. But there was something. Even I noticed that. Cazador loved to find excuses to torture Astarion more than anyone else.” Yousen shook his head. “But I know, that I mostly was turned because he tried to keep Astarion in check. And everyone else came much later.” He sighed. “There was another though. One who got turned about twelve years after me. I don’t know if he died or got away. But he went away and never returned.”

To Araj there was quite a lot of this that did not make sense. “Why are there so many of you, though?”

“We did not know that there were so many,” the gnome said. “I did not know that the folks we brought in would be turned.”

“But there are so many. What did you think he did with them?”

“Feed.” The gnome gave a shrug. “We thought they were dead. But I do realize we were all naïve in some way. I mean… We never quite questioned the signs on our backs and…”

“The signs on your backs?” she asked.

“Yes. He scarred us with his special knife. He carved an infernal contract into each of us. Because… Well…” He paused, clearly trying to find the right words. “I do not know the details, but Cazador had made a contract with one of the devils to perform a ritual. Seven thousand souls for his own ascension into some sort of uber-vampire. A vampire, that could walk in the sun and was more powerful than everyone else, from all I gather. I… I knew he had a ritual planned, but I thought until his spell caught me, that somehow I would get to share in that power. And then I realized too late that I was the sacrifice in it. We all were.”

“But you are still here.”

“We are. Because of Astarion of all people. He killed Cazador. Though I guess he would have died, if it had not been for those others he had been with. Because Cazador’s spell got him too. But the others saved him, and then he killed Cazador, and now… Now we are here. Now we are free.” He paused. “Well, as free as a vampire will ever be, right?”

Araj looked at him. A scoff rose in her throat. “I never would have expected Astarion to be of the heroic kind. Though I guess he did save the city as well in the end.”

“So you keep saying.” The gnome gave something like a mild smile as he looked at her. “I keep wondering though, if he hates us.”

“He saved you.”

“Yes, but he also did not join us.” He looked at the flasks in front of her. “I assume I cannot fault him for hating us, though. We were all fairly shitty to him.”

“Because you tortured him?”

“Yes, whenever Cazador thought it would be more fun to make us torture each other, rather than him torturing anyone of us.”

Araj could hear the bitterness in his voice. And she found once more that this was another thing she did not quite grasp. Torture. They all spoke about it as if it was this horrible thing. But was it really? She had experienced pain before, and it was not that bad. Sure, one was glad when it ended, but in the end there were worse things, right? But she assumed it might be another surface-world thing. The people on the surface always seemed to be so very afraid of pain, and made this big ruckus about things like torture.

She did not remember Menzoberranzan very well, but she knew that torture had been pretty normal. How else were you supposed to teach slaves a lesson?

He seemed to realized this, though. There was something in his eyes, as a smirk played around his lips. “You do not understand pain, do you?”

“I understand pain,” she snapped. “It is a protective response of almost all living things to save themselves from harm. It is however not quite useful, given that most injuries it warns us about can easily be mended by magic. Or I guess in your case are not quite that dangerous for you to begin with.”

He almost chuckled. “You do not understand pain.”

“What is there to understand?”

“You do not understand what it is to be put through hours of it, wishing you could die just to escape it. You do not understand what it is to live with the threat of it hanging over you each day like sword on a thin piece of twine.”

“I was punished too,” she said. “I was punished by my grandmother when she taught me.”

“You were?” He raised his eyebrows. “What did she do?”

Araj shrugged. “She slapped me. At times she would spank me. There were a few times she burned my hands. Of course she would heal them, so I did not lose any control over them.”

“How long in one go would you say she did that?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know? A few minutes.”

“Not hours, I presume.”

“No, of course not,” Araj said.

“And I doubt she took your hands and drove a metal hook right through the wrists, letting you hang on them for days at a time, while having you whipped until your skin was just hanging from your ribs, did she?”

Araj did not advertently do it, but she wrapped her arms around herself, just imagining it for a moment. Admittedly, that did not sound quite as mild as what she had experienced.

Of course the gnome very well understood her reaction. “As I said, you do not understand pain.”

She paused for a long moment. She would have loved a snappy response, but none would come. In the end only one thing came to her mind. “But why would he do that? I mean, if he feared you so much, why would he keep doing that? He had to realize that at some point someone would want revenge, right?”

“And yet, he would have succeeded with his plan, had Astarion not been whisked away through some lucky circumstance. I would be dead – everyone here, but the Gur would be dead – if it was not for this unlikely happening.”

If it was not for that Absolute plot, wasn’t it? It seemed so… Unlikely indeed. She knew not all about it, but it was so… strange. How the thing that had created a lot of death had also clearly saved a whole lot of people. It might indeed have saved more people than it had cost the lives of. Which was clearly nothing that those people in power had intended.

The gnome gave a sigh. “You said you met the people that Astarion was travelling with. What can you tell me about them?”

She shrugged. “What is there to tell? It was a bunch of misfits. A tiefling barbarian, a human wizard, a githyanki, some half-elf cleric that ran around in Sharran garbs, and someone who apparently was the son of Lord Ulder Ravengard.” She had only heard about it later on. “Apparently there also were some others involved. I don’t know if you have ever heard of this Jaheira.”

“I cannot say I have,” the gnome replied.

“A half-elven druid, who apparently had saved the city in the past.” Araj shrugged. “And there was my special bleeder, of course.”

“Your special bleeder?”

She gave a sigh. “Yes. He was a dimwit, of course. A bard. I don’t know much of him, just that he is an idiot, with quite the powerful blood.”

“Powerful blood?”

“Yes.” She smirked. “And I still have no idea why it is that powerful. But oh, I would love to find out one day.”

“What made it powerful?” the gnome asked.

“As I said,” she said with a shrug, “I don’t know. But I knew that it reacted rather violently.”

“How so?”

“Let’s just say that it might have exploded half my home in Baldur’s Gate,” she replied.

“His blood?”

“Yeah.” She chuckled at this. “Fascinating, don’t you think?”

He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “I am not quite sure if that is the words I would choose.”

Chapter Text

Another nightmare. Another time that Cazador had come back for his revenge it seemed.

Aurelia sat up in her bed, wrapping her arms around herself. This was, why she hated sleeping. People said, vampires did not need to sleep, but if she didn’t, those same nightmares would haunt her waking hours too. So she tried to sleep, but it would almost always end the same way. With Cazador taunting her, torturing her. She would probably never escape it. Or at the very least not for a long time.

She was sitting in the dark dormitory, some of the other spawn around her. It was the middle of the night. At least she believed it was. It was always so hard to say down here in the Underdark.

She looked at her bed – a Sharran stone bed, that really was not comfortable, but did better than sleeping on the floor, she guessed. Only that right now… If she went back to sleep, she knew Cazador would be waiting for her. So she would not do it. She would just…

She sighed, before getting up.

She would just walk a bit through the ruins. Because that way she could distract herself from the nightmare, and the memory.

The truth was, that it all felt so unreal. It had all happened too fast. She had truly believed that all of them would somehow benefit from Cazador’s ritual. And when it had turned out that they would be the sacrifice in that ritual, she had not known what to think. And then… Well, then Astarion had been there, and his friends. And before she knew, Cazador had been dead – and they had been free.

It was strange.

Astarion could have killed them all with Cazador’s magic, but he had chosen not too – under the condition of them going to the Underdark. And she guessed that was fair. She could still feel the hunger burning in her throat, scratching on the back of her mind. She was fairly sure she would not go into a blood frenzy, as she never really had, but she was not sure if she was around more humans than just the Gur, if she would be able to keep herself from doing it. From killing. And be it just once to find out what normal blood tasted like.

She breathed in deep as she stepped onto one of the balconies of the building. While “fresh air” was relative, when one was underground, the air did feel at least somewhat fresher than it did in the building. Especially as the lake somehow made it a bit nicer to smell.

She looked into the darkness.

A part of her was curious about this world – the Underdark. It seemed strangely mysterious, and some part of her wanted to explore. But she knew that so far she could not risk leaving Grymforge. She could not risk leaving everyone else. She was weak, after all, and she would probably not last very long out there.

A movement out of the corner of her eyes caught her attention. The white hair was noticeable, especially in the total darkness of the Underdark. Araj! Where was she going at this time of the night?

She was stepping through the harbor, heading for the parts of Grymforge that were far more destroyed than the rest. The part that the vampires had so far not managed to properly restore, even though they were still planning on it.

Aurelia paused for a moment. She was at least sure by now that Araj was not indeed in league with any other drow or something like that. But she also understood rather well that the woman was hiding some parts of herself.

Of course, Aurelia could not hold it against her. Everyone was hiding something – but some part of her was curious, too. And it was that curious part that was urging her to go now. It was urging her to try and find out what was going on.

She paused, considering it, and then she just did it.

The shapeshifting was still strange to her. It felt wrong, as she turned into smoke, floating down to the harbor, before finally taking a solid form once more. But she followed, going through the same door she saw Araj using, and then up a staircase – and then another one.

She found herself in a dark corridor, almost stumbling over the skeleton of some Sharran soldier. The staircase in which the corridor ended was half-collapsed, but she managed to make her way up – only to find that she had no idea where Araj had gone. She could not see her anymore.

She paused, considering her options for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and listened into the darkness.

Steps. Could she hear steps? No. But as she listened to the darkness, she heard something else. A clicking. And then a voice.

“No, please. Just hear me out.”

Aurelia turned, before going into the direction in which she had heard the clicking and the voice.

There was a door ajar, and open pushing it open, Aurelia found herself frozen in a spot.

There was Araj. And there was two giant spiders, one of them most certainly two times as big as Aurelia was herself.

“What in the nine hells…” she started, instinctively pulling out her dagger.

Araj whipped around to her. “What? Reli? No. We…” She turned to one of the spiders. “No. I did not lead her here! She followed, and…”

“What are those beasts doing here?” Aurelia hissed, her hands on the hilt of her dagger.

“They live here,” Araj quickly said. She pulled out a flask from her back. “Please. Aurelia. Listen. They live here. They have been here for a long time. Just…” She pressed the flask into Aurelia’s hand. “Drink this.”

A second passed in which Aurelia stared at the flask. She wanted to argue about it, but then… Then she didn’t. She hesitated, but ended up downing the flask, finding her hearing change in some way.

She understood a moment later. A potion of Animal Speaking. She could understand the spiders.

“How dare you to bring her here?” the one spider accused Araj.

“As I said, I did not bring her. She must have followed me. I am sorry.” Araj looked at the giant spider. “I am sorry, Mother.”

“Mother?” Aurelia asked, now fully confused.

“It’s her name,” Araj said. “It’s her name. She is only known as ‘Mother’.”

Aurelia shivered as she looked at the giant spider. It was strange, almost like an old mortal being it seemed the spider had gotten grey with age. At least the little hairs on her body were white. Some of her eyes were milky too. Aurelia was almost certain she was blind.

The younger spider meanwhile – at least something told Aurelia it was younger – had a more greenish coloration.

“Liar!” this one hissed. “You are always lying.”

Aurelia looked at the spider, and paused. “She… She is not lying,” she whispered. “I just saw her and followed her here. She…” A part of her still wanted to scream like a young maiden. Because she really did not like spiders. She did not fear the small ones, but those giant ones? Those were darn creepy. And she did not like to see all those eight eyes. Why did they have so many eyes?

“She is a liar,” the spider said. “She lied about being a child of Lolth. She lied about…”

“I did not lie,” Araj said, her voice trembling. “I am a child of Lolth. I am… I am a child of Lolth. But… Look. My family has been banished from Menzoberranzan when I was still a child. It was not my fault. But I was raised under Lolth’s teachings. Even though…” Her voice broke, as she did not manage to look at the spiders any longer. “It is why I am here. I… I wanted to ask a question. About Lolth. And I thought that maybe Mother might know.”

“Don’t you dare to insult her name,” the young spider raged, but it was the older one, that seemed to almost vibrate now.

“Let her speak,” she said, her voice mellow. “Let the child speak, Ch’vik.”

“But Mother, she is…”

“No, Ch’vik, let her speak. Her words can do little harm, can they now?”

Araj seemed to be shaking now. She hesitated for a long moment. “I… It has been a long while since I have been in Menzoberranzan, but I do remember our kind having slaves. I do remember them being killed in rituals, too. But I do not know… Was it really the Spider Queen’s will? Is that really what Lolth wants?”

The old spider looked at her. It was obvious, despite the strange arachnid eyes. She seemed to hum in a strange way, her fangs clicking lightly. “Lolth has chosen your people to be hers in this plane. Your kin are the chosen people of the Spider Queen, and their survival is all that would ever matter to her. I do wonder, child, why does this seem to distraught you?”

“Because…” Araj paused for a long while. “Because I was recently made to question certain things about the institution of it all. And I am not certain whether everything my grandmother has taught me was right.”

“Why would you ever doubt Lolth’s teachings?” the old spider asked.

“Because she is a traitor,” the younger spider replied. “She is a traitor, just as I told you, Mother. We should kill her now. The Great Spider will thank us in the end.”

Again Aurelia tensed, once more raising her dagger. “Don’t you even dare to attack her – or me. Because my siblings will find you, and so will the Gur. And they certainly will know how to deal with creatures like you.” She was not even certain, why she was saying this. But… Well, at the very least she was almost sure that Araj actually did want to help them. She did want to help the vampires. And they… They were in desperate need of help, weren’t they?

Araj looked at her, before giving a sigh. “I am sorry to have disturbed you, Mother,” she whispered. “I… I should go, probably. And leave you alone.”

“Don’t you dare to think you can simply go,” the younger spider hissed.

“She will simply go,” Aurelia said, looking at the greenish creature. “You will not want to have issues with my siblings.”

Araj looked at her for a long moment, before she turned and went back to the door.

“Don’t you dare to go!” the younger spider said.

But once more the older one seemed to hum. “Let the child go, for now.”

“She is a traitor, Mother. She is a traitor in Lolth’s name.”

“And she will have her proper fate in due time,” the older spider said. “Just let her be. I am too old to fight either way.”

Aurelia hesitated for a long moment, before turning to follow Araj. She looked at the woman. “Did you know the entire time, that those spiders were here?”

Araj sighed. “I… Yes, I found them within a few days of being here.”

For a moment Aurelia wanted to ask, why Araj had not said anything, but she could figure. It was not as if they had been actual friends, had they?

The vampire spawn had settled here more than two months ago, and if the spiders had not attacked them, she doubted that it would happen anytime soon.

Which left one other question: “Why… Why did you go to speak with them?”

Araj bit her lip. “I am not even sure myself… I…” A sigh rose in her throat. “You should not have followed me,” she then said, before she accelerated her steps, heading back to the staircase.

Chapter Text

There were some good things about bags of holding. But there was this annoying thing too. It was quite easy to displace things inside such a bag, as there was almost infinite space inside of it. So when Araj was looking for this book – the one she knew she had – she could not help it. She had her arm in the bag up to its shoulders. There were another stack of books and she felt along their spines. Yes. There. A leather book that felt suitably worn down. It might be the one.

She gripped it, pulling it out of the bag, only to grunt – half in embarrassment – when she found it to be one of the fiction books. Not the one she was looking for.

She put it back into the bag, feeling for the right book once more.

There was another book she had about vampires. An older work by one of the wizards going into the origins of the curse of the vampire – or the theories that existed about it. She hoped that this book might hold some more clues about what it was that vampires needed from blood. While she was fairly certain she knew the manuscript by heart, she wanted to make sure. Because right now it felt that she was blocked on getting ahead. It felt as if she was just… Well, as if she was lost in her research.

She felt inside of the bag. There were some clothes there. Some more tools of her trade. More books, but these were too new to be the one she was looking for. And then…

She paused, as her fingers found something she could not properly identify. It was cold. It was metal. About the size of her palm. She grabbed whatever it was and pulled it out, only to freeze as she found it.

Right. Yes. She had those, too.

A clasp for a piece of armor that she no longer wore, displaying the sigil of her family. An eye surrounded by the eight legs of a spider. The sigil of the House of Oblodra. The destroyed House of Oblodra. Destroyed more than a hundred and thirty years ago, and thrown into the Abyss.

There it was again. The feeling of sickness that came with her guilt. She knew she should go back to Menzoberranzan. She knew, she should make sure that her House could rise again. She had promised her grandmother once, and her mother after that. She had promised them that she would restore the House of Oblodra to its former glory. And she had everything she needed, right?

Only that right now… She had promised the vampires, too, that she would help them. She had promised to find a solution for their hunger.

She could not help but wonder. Would the other drow truly take her back? Would she had a place back in Menzoberranzan? She remembered her conversation with those spiders a few days back – and they had not even wanted to listen to her explanation.

It had not been her fault. It had not been Araj’s fault what her family had done. It had happened before she had been born. She herself had been barely more than a child, when the survivors of her family had fled the drow city.

It was unfair, wasn’t it?

It was unfair. She had not sinned against Lolth. It had been her family. And that family had never once thought about what it would mean for her. They had expected her to restore that honor, or die trying. And maybe she would die. She probably would.

So, what if she did not want to die? Was it so wrong? Was it so wrong if she wanted to live?

She looked at the sigil. The dark metal was cold in her hand. The sigil had been painted on it with red paint, mixed with just a bit of blood as she very well knew.

She was not that old. Not for a drow. She would live at least five hundred more years, if nobody killed her before that. Would it really make a big difference if she stayed in this place for a few months more? She was not certain. But the truth was, that she wanted to stay.

She pushed the sigil back into the bag, continuing to look for the book. Maybe she should clear out the entire bag at some point and see what of its contents she could throw away. But for now… Well, for now she just had to look for the book. Just in case she was forgetting something. She just wanted to make sure…

Araj was carrying the book, as she made her way over to the main building of the former Sharran temple. Not because she needed ingredients from there, but because in the end she herself could no longer ignore her hunger. She too needed to feed, even if it was not blood. And given she did no longer have anything in her tower, she needed to ask the Gur for it.

By now she knew where the kitchen of this place was, her feet taking her in that direction without much hesitation. She was not intent on eating together with someone else. But she wanted to get at least a bit of bread, maybe. And cured meat. Something like that.

“I am surprised you are still here,” a voice said, making her turn, as somehow she knew rather well that the other woman was speaking to her.

For a moment she expected it to be one of the Gur, but it wasn’t. It was one of the vampires. A human woman, who had probably been quite young when she had been turned. Her hair was red still, and the clothing she was wearing was rather simple.

Araj had seen her before. She had been with Aurelia in the past. Though Araj did not know her name – or how to react to her. “What do you want?”

“Just to express my surprise that you have not disappeared into the dark,” the other woman said with an almost mocking tone.

“I said it to the others before: I am a woman of my word,” Araj muttered. “I know it is hard to believe.”

“Indeed,” the woman said. “I only ever heard of drow. And it is not good stories.”

“Well, obviously. Surface dwellers know nothing about us – or our culture.”

“Yes, that is about what I would expect one of your kind to say, too.” The woman shrugged.

For a moment Araj wanted to give a proper reply, but then she thought better. “If you just want to rouse me, I will prefer to just ignore you and go on. I am hungry. And I do not want to get into trouble with the Gur for killing one of you.” She moved onwards, but after a few steps, she felt the vampire’s hand on her shoulder.

“Wait.”

Araj grunted, as she turned around. “What?”

“I… I actually wanted to ask you about something,” the vampire said. She paused for a long moment.

“Let me guess,” Araj replied. “You wanted to ask me, whether it is true that we sacrifice people to our Goddess. In which case, yes, it is. We do that. Or I think we did. I would not know, because I was not in Menzoberranzan in more than a hundred years. But I am guessing blood sacrifices are still a requirement.”

“No.” The vampire paused. “I… You had given this one book to Aurelia. Right? The book about vampires.”

“Yes, I did,” Araj said. “I gave her the book. And from all I have seen, it already gave you some…” She gestured widely, as she was trying to find the right word. “Inspiration.”

The vampire woman sighed. “No. I… Why did you have that book?”

Araj really was not ready to discuss any of this with this woman, who clearly was not really friendly towards her. “I just have an interest in vampires, alright? What do you expect. I learned about blood. And who, if not vampires, has a special relationship with blood?”

The vampire looked at her with red eyes. “I assume that is as good as an explanation.” She paused. “That’s why you wanted to be bitten. You really do have some sort of vampire kink, don’t you?”

“It is not a kink. It is merely… It is a special interest of mine,” Araj replied. “I wanted to know what it feels like. To be bitten. Now I know.” Not that she was not yearning for it still. But she had already made a decision on that – no matter how much a part of her heart was regretting it. But she would not force Aurelia to drink from her again.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, that I now know,” Araj said. “I had a curiosity and I sated it.” She removed the vampire’s hand from her shoulder. “Now, if you would excuse me. I am… I am going to go now.”

“No.” Again the vampire held onto her, making Araj now growl with frustration.

“What else is it?”

“I just…” The woman paused for a long moment. “Look, Aurelia… She is responsible for quite a few of us here. But half of those who are here because of her are here, because we have hurt her. And she… I know she wanted to go with Leon, when he left. And she didn’t. And now…” She was silent for a long moment. “I just don’t want her to hurt even more.”

“Well, isn’t that good?” Araj replied, not sure what else she should say. “As I said, I am a woman of my word. I will find a way to keep you all fed. And then…” She stopped, because somehow saying what she wanted to say felt wrong.

Because in the end, she was not certain.

She should leave, once her job here was done. She should finally go to Menzoberranzan. But maybe…

Well, she would see. Maybe this problem would not be solved that easily either way.

Chapter Text

The water was really ink-black down here in the Underdark. Aurelia wondered. Oh, she kept wondering. She always was wondering. If there was more light up here, would the water then appear more brown, or green, or even blue? Was the inky blackness just because of the dark of the surrounding? Was it just secrets that were hidden in the dark?

She almost chuckled over her own melancholic thoughts. Maybe she had been down here for too long. Had she? She was not certain, but it almost felt that way. Though it was not really the world above that she was missing, rather than… Well, other things. Leon. Astarion. She just wanted to know what they were doing.

“What are you doing out here?” The voice was familiar and made her turn around.

“Violet.” She looked at her sister. “You are…”

“I have been looking for you,” her sister said. “I…” She paused, and gave a sigh.

Aurelia had been sitting on one of the rocks outside of Grymforge, watching over the lake or ocean or… Well, truthfully she was not sure how big the body of water was. It felt big, but she did not know for certain. She enjoyed being outside, even though “outside” was relative, when you were living underground, she assumed.

“I wanted to know how you were doing,” her sister finally said.

“I am good, for the most part,” Aurelia said. “I mean…” She gave a sigh as well. “Yeah, I have been doing a bit better now.” A slight smile spread over her face. She knew that she had powers now, and somehow… It was strange, but using those powers felt just a bit like getting back on Cazador.

He had tried to keep their powers from them. And now he was dead – and they had control over those powers. He had not wanted them to have that control, but they had managed to get them either way. They had gotten it despite of him.

“That’s good, I think.” Violet sat down next to her. She was clearly wanting to talk about something specific, but did not know how to start. Well, no big surprise there. They all were not very good when it came to talking, where they?

Aurelia looked at Violet. “What is it?”

“I…” The elf-turned-vampire licked her lips. “I am just wondering. You have been spending a whole lot of time with the drow recently.”

“Well, she is still working on the potion. You know. On a solution that we do not need to feed and…” Instinctively Aurelia touched her throat. She could feel the thirst still. It was always there. Always scratching on the back of her mind like an angry animal in a cage. And a part of her wondered if some day it would break out.

She had seen others go mad with bloodlust, and she was just not certain that she could refrain herself. She hoped she could, but…

“Is it just because of that?” Violet asked. “I mean, you almost killed her.”

Aurelia looked at her sister. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, are just feeling bad that you did that? That you almost killed her, I mean. Are you trying… I don’t know. I get that you are feeling bad for some of the things that happened. And if you try to make up for that with her or something…”

“No!” Aurelia quickly said. “No. That… That is not it. I… The thing is actually… She deserved what I did, you know? She deserved what I did. But she realized it an…” She broke off. Because it felt so strange to her. How the other woman had apologized. And Aurelia was almost certain that she had actually meant it.

“You know that you do not need to sacrifice yourself for us, right?” Violet said.

Aurelia took a moment to make sense of this, but then she looked at the other woman. “Is that what you think this is? No. I mean… No. I…” She was not sure what she was supposed to say. Because the truth was so much more complicated than it was easy to put in words. “I do not think she is all bad. I think there are some parts of her, that might actually be good. She can be nice. If she is actually trying she can be nice. And then it is almost fun to talk to her, you know?”

Violet looked at her. “So, you like her now?”

Aurelia shrugged. “I…” She paused for a moment. “Look, she gave me these… I mean, technically she did not give me… But…” She looked at her own hands. “She is trying to be better. And I mean, who are we to say anything? We are…” She could feel the guilt twinge in her stomach once more. The heavy guilt of what she had done. So many who had suffered because of her. Sure, she did not have a choice, but then again, that was always easy to say, wasn’t it? She was betting a lot of bad guys were saying the same. That they had not had another choice. But the truth was, that most people had a choice. They just never really took it.

Violet hesitated. Then another sigh came over her lips. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Aurelia?” Another voice. For this place once having been a place of retreat, it surely was getting crowded recently.

Though Aurelia recognized the voice. It was Araj. And she was standing just a bit away.

It was ironic. Aurelia had seen quite a few paintings like this. Women on top of some rocks just by the side of some body of water. In those paintings the hair of the women often would be dramatically be blown to the side by the wind as they painter was experimenting with the forms of it. But down here in the Underdark, there was no wind. No drama. Not like that.

“I am taking you have been looking for me,” Aurelia noted.

“I kinda have, yes,” Araj said. “I… I guess I just like talking to you.”

“Who would have guessed,” Aurelia said. She looked out onto the water. “You know, I have been wondering what the water would look like, if there was light. I don’t know, though. I don’t… I am not sure.”

“I guess just like any other lake.” Araj came over to her and looked onto the shimmering black water. “Greenish, I guess. Though, I assume you have not seen any lakes in the light of day in a while.”

“I am afraid I did not.” Aurelia closed her eyes for a moment. “I do remember the Chionthar though. When the light was out. I remember it being somewhat greenish. Though when the heavy rains came, it would turn into a muddy brown.”

“Yes,” Araj said. “That sounds about right.”

“You could not really go out much into the light either, could you?”

“No. I mean, I do not burn in the way vampires do. I don’t go up in flames or anything like that. But I would get a really bad sunburn rather quickly.” Araj paused. “But I guess it is still better than literally catching fire.”

Aurelia opened her eyes turning to the other woman. She paused for a moment. “I assume it is, yes.”

There was silence between the two of them.

Araj sat down on the ground as well, pulling her knees up to her body. She was silent for a moment, before pursing her lips. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can, yes. At least I would assume you can.”

Araj took another pause. “I… I have been thinking. And I keep wondering. You know. I promised my family that I would return to Menzoberranzan and restore our House. I mean, they are all dead. But I promised them. And I did…” She stopped, making Aurelia look at her questioningly.

“You did what?”

Silence. Once more there was silence.

Araj did evade Aurelia’s gaze. “It is not as if I actually felt regret over it, but I killed some people and tortured others to get ahead in my research. Just so I can archive something that might be able to restore the honor of my family. And if I do not go there to restore the honor to my family…”

Aurelia could not help it. She frowned. She could somewhat understand what Araj was saying, but this did not change one thing: “You know, I am rather certain that some spiteful people would actually be rather glad if you did not restore you House. Though I guess that they would be even more happy, if you tried and died in the pursuit.”

Araj was silent. “I assume you are right.” Though there was something about the way she looked, that told Aurelia, that something else was going on.

Aurelia waited for the other woman to say something, but in the end she could not help but ask: “Are you certain you do not regret it?”

“What?”

“Are you certain that you don’t regret what you did,” Aurelia said.

There was something else in the expression of the drow. A sort of pushback onto the question. Hardened feelings. “Of course. They were simply humans. What worth is there life compared to mine and the honor of my family?”

“Some of them probably had friends and family who loved them too,” Aurelia said, though Araj did not reply to it.

Aurelia sighed. She looked out onto the darkness once more. She could not see the other shore of the lake. “You know… I kept telling myself the same. When I brought those people to Cazador, thinking he would kill them. I did not want to do it, but I tried to tell myself: I am immortal. They are not. So what is them dying in comparison to me be tortured for so much longer. But of course, in the end they were tortured too, without me knowing. At times for so long. Because of me. And I do regret it. I cannot help but wonder, you know? If we all tried to push back together against Cazador, could we have ended all this misery sooner? I don’t know. I want to tell myself, that we were not strong enough, but I am not sure.”

Araj was still silent for a moment. “You did not really have a choice. I did.”

“Are you certain I did not have a choice?” Aurelia asked. “It is so easy to tell myself that. But I think the truth is, that I did. I had a choice. And I just choose… Well, I choose the easy path. Because I was too afraid of the alternative.”

“He would have tortured you, right?”

“He would. But in the end…” Aurelia took a deep breath, clutching her arms around her shoulders. “I mean…” She knew now how everyone she had put into that situation had suffered – at times for decades – because of it. Some of them were still suffering from the hunger. And even those who had hurt her… Had they really deserved it? Had they really deserved to suffer like that because of the actions of one night?

She could tell herself, that those who had been willing to hurt her might have also hurt others. And maybe some of them had. But in the end…

She was not sure. She was not certain how she felt about some of those things.

Araj, too, gave another sigh. “My grandmother would curse me, if I never returned to Menzoberranzan. I promised her. I was her big hope. Her hope of restoring the family, you know?”

Aurelia looked at the other woman. “Maybe. But in the end… She is dead, right?”

Araj was silent once more. She looked out onto the dark water. “Right.”

Chapter Text

Araj wondered, if the fact that the one potion seemed to be glowing in a faint purplish tone was a good or a bad sign. Blood did not glow – at least as long as one did not treat it with other things first. But maybe it meant that this was having some sort of magical reaction.

She had recreated blood more or less. The chemical make up of it at the very least. It was right now so darn hard to do, but at least it was working. She would have to find a more efficient way to do it, if this was needed though. And this chemical mixture that was mostly of a brownish color, as the iron in it was quite reactive, she had now mixed with the magical essences. It was the essence of energy, that was glowing so lightly.

While the spells kept the mixtures moving inside the glass flasks, she went back to reading in the book she had finally found again.

There were several theories how vampires had been created. It was fairly clear that they had been around for at least three thousand years, if not for longer. And the going theories were three-fold. Either it had been a mage, who had tried to turn himself immortal, and had somehow succeeded and failed at the same time. Or it had been one of the gods who had cursed someone – with the curse spreading through blood. Lastly there was a theory that it had come from a succubus once upon a time.

If the latter was true, it would mean that the vampires absorbed energy, just like succubi and incubi did. But while succubi and incubi were able to suck the energy out of someone through the… Araj felt her face burn at the thought of it. Well, she knew how it worked. Succubi and incubi absorbed energy through sexual intercourse. But she really was a bit awkward imagining it. After all, it was not as if she had ever gotten to…

“Araj?” Aurelia’s voice made her jump almost. She turned around.

“Au… Aurelia.” She was feeling even more awkward than usual, given where her mind had been just a moment before.

Of course she could not help but wonder. There were more than enough sources that said, that vampires were quite seductive. And Cazador had made them seduce people with their bodies, right? So it was a certain seductiveness. But then again, normal mortals could be seductive as well, couldn’t they? Though there was also the fact that the bite of the vampire… Well, she had experienced it herself. And it certainly made some part of her body burn with desire.

“Am I disturbing you?” Aurelia asked.

“I…” Araj paused. “No. I was just… I was somewhere else with my thoughts.” She drew a deep breath and then managed to calm herself down. “I am sorry. I just was considering something.” She looked over to the flasks, that were twirling a hand off the table being kept their by magic. “I wanted to go looking for you soon either way. I have new tests ready.”

Aurelia followed her gaze. She frowned at the brownish mixture that was in the flasks. “That does not quite look appetizing.”

“I know,” Araj said. “It is the chemical make-up of blood, mixed with one of the essences each. But blood has a lot of iron. Usually, when it is suspended in blood it remains red, but it oxidized when it gets into contact with air. That is why blood turns brown. Because this iron was in contact with air before this, it has already oxidized, I am afraid.”

Aurelia paused. She looked between the four flasks, but then noticed the slight glow of the one with the essence of energy. “What is this one?”

“Well, this was mixed with the essence of energy,” Araj explained. “And I keep wondering. Do you know the theories of where vampires came from?”

Aurelia shook her head. “No. I assumed we were created by one of the gods or something. Well, not we. I mean… Some original vampire.”

“There is a theory that vampires were a sort of succubus once.”

“Devils?” Aurelia said, frowning at the idea.

“Well, yes. A sort of devil. And I keep wondering. The essence of energy was the strongest, right? So if you are feeding of energy… That is what succubi do as well, right? They feed of their victim’s energy.”

Aurelia wrapped her arms around herself. She clearly did not seem to like this idea – even though Araj was not certain why. Was it, because she was already a tiefling, and tieflings were said to be related to devils? Or was it something else?

“I don’t mean that you are a devil,” Araj said carefully. “I am just saying that it might be somewhat related. The way you feed.”

A sigh came over Aurelia’s lips. “I get it. I do. I just…” She was silent, before going over to the worktable. “Can I try it?”

Araj nodded. “Sure.” She went over there, grabbing the flask out of the air. She uncorked it, watching the mixture in it come to rest slowly. Then she handed it to Aurelia.

Aurelia sniffed it. “It smells of iron.”

“I know,” Araj said. “It is a heavy element in blood.”

Aurelia paused, but then she simply downed the flask, gasping for air as she was done. She swallowed, her throat moving with it. Then she opened her eyes. “I can feel… I can feel something.”

“You do?”

Another pause, as Aurelia closed her eyes. Her red skin was shimmering in the light of the candles keeping Araj’s laboratory lit. “Yes. It does something. It is not… It is not there quite yet. But it feels as if it is taking off the edge of the hunger. Just…” She paused for a moment. “The entire time the hunger feels like some sort of angry animal that keeps trying to push into my mind. And now… It is still prowling, but it no longer scratching at the door, if you get what I mean?”

Araj got her notebook out, writing this down. That sounded promising from all she could tell. “That’s good, right?”

Aurelia nodded. “Yeah, it definitely is good.” She hesitated, before sitting down on the stool that stood next to the work table. “Should I try the other versions as well?”

“Hmm.” Araj hesitated. She wondered if that was the right way to go about it. Aurelia was doing the most to get this made. But at the same time it might be more useful to feed each version to someone else, especially if this first dose had already taken off the edge. “I think it might be better to either wait until you feel the hunger again, or have someone else try it.”

Aurelia shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.” She looked at the empty flask, and something like a smile showed on her lips. “It would be so helpful if we could make it. I do not want to kill anyone down here, you know? And I don’t know if I could hold back, if I drank from a person.”

“Is the hunger so bad?” Araj asked.

“It is. As I said, it is like a wild beast that wants to take me over. I do not know how else I could explain it.”

“It is fine.” Araj sighed, leaning against the table now. “I think I get it.” She looked at the other woman, feeling just a little something inside of her chest. It was so strange how easy it was by now to talk to her. After all that had happened in the beginning. “You managed to hold yourself back when you drank from me though.”

Aurelia paused. Her tail flicked back and forth nervously. “Well, you blood tastes… It tastes bad.”

This just made Araj wince. She knew it of course. And all she could guess was, that it was because of the illithid blood. The illithid blood tasted weird, she assumed. Because she had not seen vampires wince at other drow blood.

She looked over to the tiefling woman. “I am sorry I forced you to drink from me. I… It was not fair. And I should not have done it.”

Aurelia shrugged. “Maybe. But…” She chuckled, though there was a certain bitterness in it. “You know, it is kinda funny. If you did not have that accursed blood, there would have been quite a few too thankful for a donor. Sure, chances would be, they would have emptied you. But if your blood was not like that, you probably would not have to ask twice. So, for some reason you are the one person, who really wants to be bitten by a vampire, while vampires do not want to bite you.”

“Lucky me,” Araj muttered. She knew it was messed up that she wanted to be bitten. She understood also quite well, that a lot of vampires might have emptied her – or would have done so, if her blood was not rancid. But she really just… Maybe she had read too many of those stupid books, but she had always loved the idea. Her blood and lifeforce getting sucked. Her being connected to another being. Being bound by blood. Especially now, that her family was gone. Dead. All of them.

“Did you actually enjoy it?” Aurelia asked. “When I bit you, I mean.”

Araj hated that she could feel her cheeks and the tips of her ears burn once more. She knew it was well hidden by her obsidian skin, but she felt awkward about it still. “I kinda did. It was a good feeling, you know? It feels… It feels strangely good.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, evading Aurelia’s gaze. “But I won’t force you to do it again.”

Somehow she could feel Aurelia’s gaze on herself. It made her want to look at the other woman even less.

Only when Aurelia got up, did Araj looked at her again. “What?”

“It is fine,” Aurelia said. “You know… It is funny. When I told you that you did not have to be an asshole, I did not really think that you could be something else. But… It turns out, that you really could be.”

Araj gave a scoff, not knowing what else to say. “Thanks,” she muttered. “I mean. I just…” She was not sure what she could really say. She looked at the tiefling’s glowing eyes. “You know, I get that some of the stuff I did before was messed up. I just…” She was not even sure what she was trying to say. She just knew that there was a strange feeling inside of her chest. And she was not sure if she liked that feeling. It felt strange. Unfamiliar. Alien.

“Do you want to be bitten again?”

Araj evaded the tiefling’s gaze. “Well, yes. But… I mean. If I really taste that horrible…”

Aurelia moved in closer. Maybe just a bit too close. “You know. It is ironic. If you say that you do not want me to do it, I kinda want it.”

The heart in Araj’s chest was beating quite fast now. She would have retreated maybe, but her back was already too the table. She looked into those glowing eyes, that right now were just of the same red color as those of other vampires.

Their breaths almost mixed, and for a moment, Araj wanted to push back. But there was another part of her. A weaker part. The part that still wanted this. Or maybe it was a part of her that was charmed by those vampire powers. Who knew?

One way or the other, she tilted her head to the side and gasped a moment later, when Aurelia buried her teeth in Araj’s neck.

Araj did not even understand why. Maybe something had been wrong with the potion. Maybe it made Aurelia act in some strange way. And yet, even though her rational mind expected the same cold shiver to come over her, that she had felt the last time around, it was not that feeling. Instead there was a warmth. A heat almost. A closeness.

A gasp came over her lips, as she could feel the other woman suck her blood. Her heart was racing now, and she felt so strangely… What was that feeling?

Really. What was the name for this feeling?

Her hands were almost floating in the air, as she was not quite sure what to do with them. A part of her wanted to put them around Aurelia, another part did not want that. She did not want to hold down the other woman. But there was just…

Her blood was rushing in her ears, and she was not even sure what to feel now. Was Aurelia still in control, or would she empty her? Would that be so bad?

But then Aurelia took a deep breath, letting go of her. She chuckled, though there was not a lot of humor in it. “Strange. I could have sworn it had tasted worse last time around.” There was a light smile on her lips, as she looked at Araj.

Araj was not certain, what she could answer. They were still so close. Too close, maybe. A part of her wanted to push Aurelia away. And yet, another part… Another part kept thinking, this was not close enough.

Strange.

It was really strange.

The second part was the one, that made her lean forward now. She was not even realizing what she was doing, as her lips brushed against those of the other woman.

Her own eyes widened as she realized what was happening. What in the nine hells was she doing?

“I…” She opened her mouth. “I am sorry.”

Aurelia looked at her for a moment. Her eyes were widened too. “I am sorry, too,” she whispered, her breath catching. “I… I am going to… I will be back later.” With that she turned around and left.

Chapter Text

Strange.

It was strange to Aurelia.

It was strange to her.

She run her finger over her lips, and wondered, whether it had actually happened. Because she had not seen it coming. She actually had not seen it coming.

Strange.

A kiss. And blood. A kiss.

What had actually happened?

She had bitten Araj again. She was not even sure why. But the more the drow had pushed back against it, the more Aurelia had wanted to bite her. It had been weird, though. Because she did remember how the blood had tasted the last time. And this time around it had not been quite that rancid. Not good. Not… Well, she never had drunken blood from another sentient creature. But she was assuming that it would be better than this. The blood of bigger animals she had tasted had been sweeter. But it had not been rancid. It had not been sour and bitter and all those other things it had been before.

And then…

She was sitting on the other side of the harbor, looking over to the tower. It had been two hours at least.

She really had not seen this coming. And right now, she was not sure what she was supposed to think. She…

She had been kissed by others before. Of course she had. Cazador had send her out there to seduce strangers and bring them to his mansion, so he could kill them – or rather turn them, as she knew now. So obviously she had kissed others. She had kissed so many others. Though those kisses… The kisses of those last six decades had been different from that kiss right now. Those kisses had been demanding. They had been asking for more. Many of them had been passionate and hungry, tongues pushing into her mouth.

That right now… It had been innocent. It had felt almost accidental. It had felt…

Again she ran her fingers across her lips, not even sure what she was supposed to think. It had felt almost like a first kiss. Only that she had forgotten what a first kiss felt like. It had been so long after all. It had been so long since she had had anything like that. An actual romance. Technically… Well, if she was honest with herself she had never really had it before. After all, the one romance that had been before Cazador, it had just been another lie as well, had it not?

She looked over to the tower. Something told her, that she should talk to Araj again. But then again,  she was not even certain what she would tell her. She was not even certain what she was feeling right now. Other than confusion. Oh. She was so confused.

A kiss.

Had it been an accident? Or was something meant by it? She was not sure. And she felt strange. Oh. She felt so strange.

It was night above. She kinda knew it. She was sitting in front of one of the fireplaces, staring into the flames. She could not sleep. For once not because she was haunted by the specter of Cazador, but because she kept thinking of what had happened before.

A kiss.

A darn kiss!

She was sitting to close to the fire, maybe. Her knees she had drawn to her chest, staring into the dancing flames. Even now it felt as if the ghost of that kiss was still lingering on her lips, and she was not even understanding why this made her feel so strange.

So many kisses. She had kissed so many other people. This should not really be that special and yet.

Araj had looked almost afraid after their lips had brushed against each other. Afraid of what? Aurelia could not help but wonder. Of what had the woman been afraid?

She had felt Araj’s heartbeat as she had drunken from her. And it made still so little sense. Because in the end of this, for now Araj was just barely tolerable. She had become nicer, sure. But that did not mean she was actually good. Just somewhat alright. And yet Aurelia could not help but think – remember. She could not help but…

“Why are you not in bed?” a voice asked behind of her.

She turned her head to see Yousen come into the room. “I could ask you the same,” she replied, before diverting her gaze back into the flames.

“I was looking for you,” Yousen said. “And this building is actually quite big. So I looked for you longer than I intended.”

She smiled just a little. “I guess that is fair.”

She could feel how he came up to her, sitting down next to her.

People changed. People could change. At least until they died. He had changed so much since Cazador had died. He had been so cruel the entire time. Some of the others had held back when Cazador had made them torture each other. Yousen never had. He had delighted in their pain. But now he actually tried to look out for them.

Leon had changed too. After his daughter had died, he had become so cold. He had killed Darylia, and he had left.

Aurelia guessed that Astarion had changed as well. She did not know it for certain. But he had always been so afraid of Cazador, but in the end, he had fought him. And he had won. And he had found someone with whom he wanted to be.

And she? Could she change as well? She had been a coward too. More so than most of the others. She had been such a coward, because she had feared all that punishment. Now there was no punishment waiting for her. Just… Well, she was not certain.

“Did you have another nightmare?” Yousen asked.

“No,” she said softly. “I am just thinking.”

He looked at her, waiting for an explanation. When that explanation did not come he prompted: “Thinking about what?”

She paused, licking her lips. “Do you think… Do you believe people change?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “I hope so. I am trying to change.” Then he looked at her again. “Why?”

Again she fell silent. She was not sure if she could talk about what just had happened. She was not sure what she should feel. “I am… I am thinking. Araj. She has changed a lot since she has come here, hasn’t she?”

Yousen thought about it. Now he was watching the fire, too. “I think she has. Yes. I did not really believe she was going to do anything. I thought she was just getting her kick and then would disappear. But she is actually trying.”

“Yes,” Aurelia muttered. “She has made a new version of the potion. And I think… I think it really might be working.” Though it was hard to say, given she had actually drunken blood afterwards. Right now her hunger was no longer a wild beast. More a little kitten having rolled up on a pillow and purring contently.

“You have been with her?”

“Yeah. This afternoon.” She fell silent. “Well, I guess it was the afternoon. Down here, time does not really feel real, does it?”

“It does not,” he agreed. Then he was silent as well. He breathed slowly, watching the flames dance over the wood for a while. There was some solace in that silence. A soft solace, as the two of them were simply sitting there. Only after a minute or two did Yousen ask: “Did something happen with Araj? Did she do something?”

Aurelia remained silent. She was not sure how she was supposed to reply. Because it felt so unreal still. A kiss! Out of all things a kiss had been the last thing she had expected. She sighed, looking at her own hands.

For a moment, she pursed her lips. “We were talking. And she told me that she no longer wanted me to bite her. That she was sorry for it. For forcing me to begin with. And I don’t know. I think I was stubborn. The more she pressed back against it, the more I kinda wanted to bite her.”

“So you did?” Yousen guessed.

“So I did,” she confirmed.

Another silence fell between them, like a fog too heavy to see through. She pulled her legs even closer to her body.

“Did you actually hurt her?” Yousen looked at her now.

“No,” she said. “But I…” She pursed her lips for a moment, her eyes still pinned on those bright flames. “When I stopped drinking from her… She… She kissed me. I think.”

Yousen left her the room to add something, but in the end there was not a whole lot she could add. “You think?”

“She… It was not like a serious kiss. You know? Not like a kiss before you…” She fell silent again. “It was innocent. Our lips barely touched. And I am not even sure if it was an accident or if she had done it on purpose. It was… I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Yousen thought about it for a long moment. He remained silent, looking at her. “What would you prefer?”

She had not seen that question coming. Now she looked at him, though the flames still seemed to be burned into the back of her eyes. “What?”

“What would you prefer?” he repeated. “If it was an accident or if she actually has tried to kiss you.”

“I…” She pursed her lips again. Even not it was as if she could still feel it.

Somehow she was thinking of Astarion again. More than that, she was thinking of the human man that had been there with Astarion. She had not even fully caught the man’s name. But she had seen the way the man had looked at Astarion. She had seen the way he had been worried. And something had told her that it might be something more. Even though she knew nothing about it.

She had been dreaming of that.

When she had still been mortal, some part of her had dreamed of that. Of someone to come safe her. Someone who would not look down on her because of her infernal heritage. But she had always known that that would probably never happen. It had been a fantasy she had fled to. Back then. But also under Cazador. A fantasy.

In that fantasy it had mostly been a strong human man or woman, though. Not an elf. Most certainly not a drow. Not a vile drow with a vampire kink.

And yet, the Araj who had been around for the last two tendays or so… That one had actually been nice. She had been comforting in some way, that Aurelia did not really remember. It had been nice to talk with her. And in some way… Aurelia had actually enjoyed spending time with her.

At times she had found herself thinking, that it might have been a good thing that she had not actually killed the woman.

And now?

She sighed. “I do not even remember what it is like kissing someone, without wanting to seduce them. I did kiss someone like that before. But it has been so long ago.”

Yousen sighed. He looked into the flames. “Cazador is dead. We don’t need to seduce anyone now.”

“I know,” she muttered.

He closed his eyes, and drew in a deep breath, before turning to her once more and taking her hand. “I do know one thing though. Sometimes things do not happen the way we expect them to. I mean, look at us. Nobody has expected us to end up down here, right?”

“I guess not,” she said.

“And yet we are here. And I guess she is as well. So maybe…” He broke off and shook his head. “Look. If you do not want this to go anywhere, then tell her. And if she does not respect it, I will make her respect it. But…” He pressed her hand. “You do deserve a happy ending too, you know?”

“A happy ending?”

“Yeah. Like in the stories. Where everyone has a lover and they go to live happily ever after. Something like that.”

The thought of that made her chest tense somehow. “I would like that,” she still muttered. “I… I think I would like that.”

Chapter Text

Araj did not know what she was supposed to do now. It had been a mistake. She knew it. She should have known it before, too. How could she think it was a good idea to kiss Aurelia just like that?

Truth was, of course, that she had not thought about it. It had been more of an instinct to do it, rather than a well-considered action. It was very much unlike her. Normally Araj never did anything without considering it first. Normally, she made thought-out decisions, but that yesterday… It had been just an impulse she had not been able to deny.

She had read too many of those bad books, hadn’t she? Books about those fair maidens falling in love with a mysterious vampire to then be whisked away by their undead lover. But this was not a fairytale and not a romance novel. This was reality, in which people who were too romantic would undoubtedly find a rather miserable end.

She was sitting by her worktable and thought. Some part of her wanted to just take her things and leave. Because now she would be unable to look at Aurelia again. But then again, if she left, she would have broken her word. She had promised the vampires to find a way to feed them. And no matter how dishonorable she generally speaking might be, she would definitely be true to her word. She would find a solution. For the vampires, but also to proof that she could do it.

She took a shaky breath, wrapping her arms around herself.

How should she talk with Aurelia again? She knew she needed to. She should apologize for what she had done. But she was not very good at it. She had never been good at apologizing. Because an Oblodra would not apologize, of course. Her family had once been one of the big Houses of Menzoberranzan, and she should not apologize.

Only that her house had fallen so long ago. And there was no way for her to restore it.

She knew it. If she was honest with herself, she knew it. The only thing waiting for her in Menzoberranzan was death. If she was good, she might manage to go down with a fight. But otherwise, she would simply die.

An entire life. She had spent her entire life preparing to bring her family back. She had been prepared for it by her grandmother and mother. And yet, they should have known as well, as Araj knew now that there never had been a real chance for her to actually do it. A single drow would not stand alone against the private armies of the other houses. Even if she had found other people to support her… And Menzoberranzan would not forgive her family.

She looked at the chemical equipment standing on the table. It was not being used right now.

Some part of her wanted to distract herself with the work, but another part of her knew that this would not work. Right now her mind was too filled with emotions for rational thought and knowledge to win out against it all. She could not work. She could not focus.

In the end she got up. Maybe she could walk the shore of that lake, that was almost an underground ocean. At least then she would not feel so fearful of… She was not even certain, what she was fearful off. But she knew that somehow…

A kiss.

She had never really kissed someone before.

When she had lived with her family, the only people around her had been members of her family as they had been outcasts. She would not kiss her family, of course. And she would not kiss one of the slaves. And when she had been living on the surface, well… People in Baldur’s Gate saw a drow as something exotic. But she had never been interested in being someone’s exotic adventure. And while some part of her had maybe yearned for a romance – a real romance – she had known too, that she never had been meant for it.

It had been fine.

It always had been fine.

She moved through those old hallways of the Grymforge, and eventually found the path upwards again, that brought her up to the cliff above the old temple. Her drow eyes saw well in the darkness, though she had taken a potion with her as well, that was glowing softly in the darkness.

Most of the books they had had back when they had been on the run – in exile – had been just books about magic and alchemy. It had not been until she had arrived in Baldur’s Gate that she had found her enjoyment for novels and other fictitious stories. She knew that her grandmother would have never approved of it. But it had been nice. It had been nice to get to flee into those books from time to time, and imagine that even she could be the heroine of such a story. She had known that she was not. Of course she had.

There were some stories in the surface world about drow, but most of the time they had a very strange idea what drow were like. And while people told those stories about Drizzt, Araj could also not wonder how much of them was true. Chances were, that Drizzt had died a long time ago, and the stupid surface dwellers just assumed that any male drow was Drizzt.

No. Araj was not really a heroine. She was just… She would have liked to be. Because people liked heroes, didn’t they? People liked heroes. And she had known that people did not like her. It should matter, for she also did not care about any of those darn surface dwellers. But admittedly… Life had been a bit lonely. Maybe it had been lonelier than a bit, in fact.

Eventually she found her way down to the side of the water. While she was still on the side of the cliff, she could almost reach out and touch it. Down here the inky black water was almost a perfect mirror. After all, there was no wind to break the surface.

She sat down on the side.

Love. Love was a not a feeling the children of Lolth were born with. Lolth did not care for things like love, courage, or loyalty to anyone but herself. No, Lolth was a goddess of treachery and trickery. She was a goddess, who demanded even the sacrifice of her own children. While Araj had been too young back in the day to understand it, she saw it now. She had seen how so many of the children of Lolth had been killed in Lolth’s name.

So it was only natural, that someone like Araj would never again find a home among her kind. Because forgiveness was also not a virtue of Lolth’s.

She had known it all along. She just had lied to herself, because she could not face the fact that she never could fulfill her family’s wishes.

She looked at the flask in her hand, that was spreading a soft, but cold light. It was almost like the light of the moon, as it flooded the darkness around her. Maybe that was already her mistake: To see the pale light and think of the moon, while she was a child of the Underdark. She should think of a glowing mushroom, rather than the moon and Selûne.

She really was… Well. She was not what her family had wanted her to be.

Following an instinct, she almost threw the flask into the water, but stopped herself in the last moment. It was not the flask’s fault, that she had failed in her mission, was it?

A deep sigh came over her lips, as she pulled her knees up to her body. Why was she like this? Why had she failed like this? Why… Why had she ended up here?

Somehow she noticed the steps coming closer. And somehow it did not surprise her, when she turned her head and saw her again. Aurelia. And for once Araj was almost certain, that the other woman had been looking for her. She had wanted to talk to her.

Araj sighed. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am sorry that I kissed you. I know I shouldn’t have. But I just… I… I did not think. I am sorry.”

Aurelia did not reply. She sat down besides Araj, but with enough distance between them, that their bodies did not touch.

Silence. Down here in the Underdark, the silence could be perfect at times. Up on the surface, there often were sounds. Insects, birds, and the wind. Down here, there was nothing, but the distant dripping of water into the lake.

A minute passed. Maybe even two. Then Aurelia spoke. “Can I ask you something?”

Araj hesitated, but in the end she nodded slowly, still looking at the glowing flask in her hand. “I guess you can.”

“Do you…” Aurelia paused for a moment, biting her lip. “Do you like me?”

Araj was not even sure how to answer that question. She looked out onto the lake. There were a few shimmering things just beneath the surface in the distance. It made her wonder if it was some sort of fish or monster or just a plant.

“I don’t know,” she finally muttered. “I don’t know what it is supposed to feel like. To like someone.”

Aurelia was silent as well, but then she gave a sigh herself. “If I am honest, I am not even sure myself anymore. I have loved. At some point in the past I have loved before. But I was dumb, I think. It all feels so distant. A different life.”

Araj was not certain what she should say. She knew that this was just nothing she should have a part of. Love. Romance. It was just silly ideas that silly people believed in. And she should know better than that. She should know better…

Yet, there was also this strange urge in her. An urge that told her to touch the other woman, to put her hand over Aurelia’s. She was not sure if she should do it. Better not. It would probably be wrong.

“You don’t hate me anymore,” Araj noted.

“No, I don’t.” Aurelia turned her head to look at her, even though Araj did not manage to hold her gaze. “It is strange. You actually changed. And… I think you really do not have to be an asshole.”

“I can try not to be,” Araj whispered.

“You can,” Aurelia confirmed.

Another silence fell between the two of them, while there was a short movement. Just a couple of waves on the surface of the lake. Something might have emerged a bit away. Who could know why?

“So, you never have been…” Aurelia hesitated. “You never have been in love?”

Araj did not say anything, but she shook her head. “I read books about it. And at times I imagined myself to be that heroine to get swept away.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “But I knew I never could be. Because I was supposed to be…” Again she did not manage to finish.

Silence could be so oppressing. It could be hard to endure. Araj could feel it now. It made her want to speak up, just to fill the dark emptiness surrounding them with words and meaning. But she could not find them. Those right words. She could not find them.

And yet, the silence felt like a dagger to the throat. Like an unspoken threat, that was hovering over her like a sword on a string.

Still, it was Aurelia who broke the silence. “Would you want to be with me?”

Araj finally forced herself to look at the other woman. She paused. “Would you?”

“What?”

“I mean, would you want to be with me?” Araj sighed. “I am an asshole. I know I am. And…”

“You can be better,” Aurelia said.

“Are you that sure?”

The following silence was of a shorter length. “Yes. I think I am. Though I am maybe as surprised by this as you are.”

They exchanged a look. A smile. A very shy smile.

“I don’t know if something like this actually can work out,” Aurelia said. “And… I think you still need to lean a lot of things. But if you learn…. I don’t know. I think I do like you. And I think that maybe I could learn to love you.”

“You think?”

“Who knows? After everything that has happened.” Once more there was a heavy sigh coming over Aurelia’s lips, before she reached out. She put her hand over Araj’s just as Araj had been thinking about before. “Maybe… Maybe together, we can find something like redemption.”

“Redemption?” Araj whispered that word.

“Yeah. We both have done things that were not good, haven’t we?”

Araj sighed. “I guess. Yeah.” She looked at the tiefling woman, at those red eyes. And something in her chest felt tight – tighter than normal. It was surprisingly hard to breath, as her heart was beating against her ribs. She felt almost sick to her stomach – and maybe that was the feeling that she had read about in so many novels before. “So… You want to stay?”

“Yes,” Aurelia said. “And most of all… I do not want you to die.”

Araj evaded her gaze. She swallowed. Because the truth was, that she wanted to live, too.

Something was burning in her eyes, though she blinked those tears threatening to well up away. “I want to live. There is not much of a family legacy to restore once I am dead.”

“I guess not, no.”

Araj breathed in slowly, trying to fight all those feelings off. In the end she looked at the other woman, whose hand was so cold on her own. “Now… What will we do now?”

Aurelia hesitated. She did not answer with words, but instead she leaned over.

Much to her chagrin, Araj had to admit that she first did not understand, until she felt those lips onto her own. They were cool, like Aurelia’s skin. But soft. They were surprisingly soft, and feeling them so close felt strangely good.

A kiss. A real kiss this time. It made her heart beat even faster. She was not even sure how to do this. And yet, she opened her lips just a little, allowing the kiss to get just a bit more passionate.

Huh. So that was what this felt like.

She remembered to breathe, before finally closing her eyes.

Yeah. Maybe she could actually like this.