Chapter Text
In his young life of twenty-two years old, he had never craved for a single drop of blood, ever! The simple thought of him consuming blood would make his stomach turn and create knots on knots.
One time Ifa had joked about it, he had scared him once when he had walked on him and Ifa had not noticed until he was looking over his shoulder taking a look at what the other was working on. Ifa had screamed so loud that time that Ororon could only hear ringing in his ears but glad it had only lasted for a couple of seconds, and if he remembered correctly the conversation that followed went like this or so…
“By the Pyro Archon! Ororon don’t you ever do that!”
He had felt himself blink, “do what?” He then tilted his head,
“Come at me without making a sound, and stay right behind me! You had your head almost on my shoulder and so, so close to my neck! Ahehe, the moment I noticed you I thought you would finally take your chance on my blood!”
He felt his nostrils flare and eyes widening while he took a step back, “Why would I do such a thing?” alright he could smell the faint hint of sweetness in his blood but he would never, ‘hope he isn’t eating too much honey I’ve been giving him’.
“Um, because I’m sooo sweet? Also your part bat and who knows when you’ll start liking blood for a change in your diet?”
And if he remembered correctly, he had stayed silent and left the basket on the counter and went home right after then a day later his granny had gone to visit him and found him on the floor for being weak, as he had not eaten or slept at all. Two days later Ifa had gone to visit him telling him that Citlali had talked his ear off for making him go ill, Ifa asked him if it was true which he denied soon after but then Ifa asked why he had left without saying anything, not even a see you later.
So he had answered, “ I was getting thirsty for, what did you call it? ‘Sooo sweet’ blood that I had to leave before you tempted me to bury my fangs on your neck and suck your blood out and leave you as dry as a leaf at fall”
Ifa had laughed right after and he joined him… but that night he had stayed up looking at the sky as he sat with his crops. Praying to anything and anyone that he wouldn’t become a blood sucking beast and hurt the ones he cared about…he just did not want to become a bigger problem than what he already was.
But as the time went on, he noticed little by little how his hatred to blood and his disgust towards it did not grow even when he would see the pylons releasing abyssal creatures that would make anyone and anything bleed. Instead it shrank, his stomach stop doing turns when he helped heal the wounded, no knots were formed on top of other knots when he smelt the different types and kinds of blood not even when he found himself in the rare times on the field and blood was on his hands due to the fights with the abyssal creatures. (bows weren’t good for when the monsters got close)
He found himself at peace with it, with the blood but it is known that good things do not last since that was until he found himself wondering how it would actually taste like in his mouth. Deciding that he had enough with that little problem he left the territory of the Master of the Night-Wind and went back to his little home where he had left his crop unattended. Days from there he found himself craving for meat, fresh meat, one that is killed at the moment while the blood was still pumping through the animal’s veins and that made his mouth water but it was also that, that scared him! For now he was glad he had not grown cravings for any human blood because he did not know what he would do with himself when that moment arrived, he wish it to not but at the rate that he was going he might need to seal himself in his house or he would dig a hole big enough for himself so his crops could use him for nutrients as he would slowly die.
At the end it was not the meat he was after it was the blood, the only thing that would quench his thirst that he would feel, have every night. He could still eat but not that much, he could still sleep but he would be mostly awake at night and feel weak during the day in the hot sun, but he was fine with that, he could still live with that. The good thing was that no one would notice the amount of decreasing deer in the area, and his granny would visit him once in a while and he would make sure that there weren’t any drop of blood or even the smell.
Everything was okay.
Nothing was okay.
It had started the very first day he met the Captain, he had smelled him first rather than hearing him which was really bad. The smell from the Captain was not even good, it was foul and unpleasant, as if something was rotting and death too much of it, but that caused something in him to wonder what the blood of the man would taste like. He sighed in relief when that thought had left just as it had arrived only because the man had started to ask for his granny.
Although, that only did make him follow the man all over Natlan, one, he had asked for his granny and two, his head was making him do so, which he was growing tired of but, if he didn’t do that he might as well go crazy!
Then when he saw the man, (IL Capitano as he had heard some of the man’s subordinates call him) fight against the Pyro Archon Mauvika, he had felt the need to help him at the last moment when he saw the man on his knees. As if the need was to keep him alive so he could drink from him and satisfy his wanderings of how the blood would taste like from someone who had a stench of death all over. And by only thinking about it, it made him lick his lips and fangs…
Capitano took him in since then, he would help here and there but he had proposed that he would stay close to him in case his subordinates would do something about him, and to his surprise the man accepted but still told him that he would be fine. The thing was, he was not.
All the time that he was with the Fatui he couldn’t go to his house in the morning to grab one of his blood bags for his thirst that he could feel it increase by each day that pass, while at nights he would offer to missions to seek information that the Captain wanted he would have it planned to go hunt a deer but then the said man would join the group he would go with. It was impossible for him to have a drop of blood with that man around him all the time!
And somehow…he liked it.
***
“You are mostly active at night but I still see you up in the morning, do you even sleep?” Capitano once asked him when the man found him sitting at the edge of the cliff admiring the view below.
“You worry too much. You don’t show it but it’s still there no matter what you do, and I shouldn’t be questioning you as you are the first Faui Harbinger but why are you here? And why do you care? I’m just–” he was about to close his eyes when saw the dark figure of the man sitting next to him, too close, the man was basically touching his shoulder.
“I am here because I care about you, Ororon. Despite you not being part of the Fatui, you’re still helping us out with the information, and I am the captain, I am the one in charge of my soldiers and anyone who would lend a hand to our cause” he could feel the man look at him, even with the helmet on and the thin black veil that would cover the face, he could feel the eyes of the man look at him intensely that only made him shift a bit to the side, and hold his hands down as they tremble and not from the cold. “Therefore I will ask again, have you slept? And if I keep looking at you I could tell that you are paler than usual as well as skinnier, why would that be?”
He sighed, of course he couldn’t hide any information to the man about his health and he doubted that he would be able to hide it to anyone else if he goes without drinking blood, to add he was a terrible liar- scratch that, he was an okay liar but not a good enough but the consequences were more than just hiding it. “ I have rested but I can not sleep well for I have an unquenching thirst which keeps me awake at the time that I want to sleep, and I do eat but it is not enough–”
“And what is that you need in order to stop this thirst that you speak of?” Capitano finally stopped looking at him and turned to see where his eyes were at, which were on the deer below them who was alone eating grass, no groups were near it.
Capitano noticed that the other did not respond, it was too silent, not even the sound of the young man breathing, so when he looked back to where Ororon was sitting he found out that he was not there. But from the corner of his eye he saw a dark shadow take down the deer that had been just eating there, he sighed, “you are mostly good with everything but you are stubborn to the core”, he slide down from the cliff but when he got to the ground the sight that he saw did not scare him (he had seen too many things for him to be scared), instead it worried him and made him wonder.
He found Ororon on his knees and the deer that they had seen in front of him, while the young man sucked the poor animal dry. Taking a step forth only made Ororon stop drinking the blood, (which he doubted there was any left), and look up to him, from his lips to his chin blood dripped down to the ground fangs were slightly longer and sharper than to what he had seen and that one eye that would usually have the color pink was that of the purest red while both pupils were slits.
Ororon hissed at him and in a blink he was gone, the only thing left was the poor dead deer. Now he had to find him sooner rather than later since the young man was running on pure instinct, which was never a good thing and if what Ororon had told him was true then he would be in search of his next victim for his unquenching thirst. Although, two questions remained, would Ororon only hunt for animal blood or would he go hunt for human blood next? And whatever Ororon is suffering from, is it from a curse like his long life and rotting body, or was it an illness that the young man developed for having a fractured soul?
Capitano kept on walking through the night, at first near the territory of the Children of Echoes but he had not found any signs of disturbed animals or any smell of blood that could have been spilled, and he had the same result for the nearby territories. That only left him with the only option that Ororon might have gone to his little home, now for some reason he wished that no one would have seen him in the state that he was in.
Arriving at the little house that he had seen Ororon the first time, he found no one near it, no animal or human, no sound or smell of a drop of blood. From the window of the young man’s house he could see that everything was still intact, no one had gone in or out of there but that was until he heard the leaves of the nearby tree violently move. That was the only warning that he got before an electrified arrow was shut in his direction, he was able to catch it and break it in half but that only got him shocked to then be immediately be hit by a ball of the purest electro power.
His nerves were fried for just a minute or two but that was enough time for Ororon to come out of his hiding place that was on top of a very high tree, to then be able to fly down from it at such a high speed that he was able to push Capitano to the ground with such force that the man groaned in response when his back hit.
Ororon stood over Capitano, his wings agitated as if still deciding if to flee or finish the hunt, and it seemed that he had chosen the latter as Capitano saw the young man’s wings settle down while Ororon went on his knees, straddling his waist. His fingerless gloved hands with sharp black claws and his red and cyan eyes searched every part of Capitano’s body, to only find no expose skin, which earned a sigh of relief from the man but he saw how Ororon’s ear twitch upon hearing it, and calmed down?
Ororon tilted his head to the side while he sat on top of Capitano, looking down to the man’s helmet, his clawed hands slowly reaching to the said helmet. He could hear the man under him even stop breathing, he could sense that the other was waiting, wondering if he would do it. And he did, and there were no hands reaching for him to stop what he was doing. The smell of rotting wasn’t as faint with the helmet off, and he could feel how his mouth watered but he found himself unable to bite down on the man’s neck for some reason, he could just stare at the man’s face.
Black spots lingered here and there while blue veins decorated the face, some skin seemed too close to fall off from the face, the left eye had lost its color as it was blind while the other had a star shape with its purest blue, that stopped him from doing anything else. He was captivated with how the man looked, and for many days he had wondered what was under that helmet and why was it that he never took it off, and now here he was, sitting on his waist and looking down on the Capitan.
How had things ended up like this?
‘ What am I doing?’
‘ Where am I?’
‘ Why is he here?’
‘ Why is his helmet off?’
‘ What have I done!?’
He felt his eyes widen when a hand gently touched his face right under his tattoo, he leaned into the warm but cool enough hand that grounded him to the present and out of his thoughts that were trying to swallow him whole. The wings behind him opened and flew him off the Captain while he looked down in shame and away from the man, “I apologize, I do not know what took over to act in such a way. And for what I have done I should be punished in whatever way you see fit”
His ears on top of his head moved as he heard Capitano stand up and took hold of his helmet but then he felt the hand of the man on his shoulder, “I will not punish you, Ororon” he looked up to see the Captain looked down at him and his helmet rested on his hip. He might have made a face of pleading why, since the man continued to talk, “you are already suffering from something unknown, that alone is enough. Although, if punishment is what you want, you will need to drink whatever is quenching your thirst.” The man let go of his shoulder as he put on the helmet but before he did so he looked around and hummed in response. “I can not have an informant running on instinct alone when his thirst has exceeded from his control”
Standing up he still did not dare to have his head high, he was ashamed and now he wondered if anyone had seen him in the state that he had been in, but that was enough of it, he could not think of it more as he was getting a headache that threaten to take him down to his knees again, so with a nod he responded, “I understand”
“Good. We will head back to the camp and once there you will head off to sleep in my tent and when you do wake up you will need to explain everything I need to know about you. I do not want anything bad and out of ordinary to happen to you”