Chapter Text
Astarion watched with bated breath as the party came upon his latest meal. His predicament was already so precarious that the last thing he needed was for everyone, especially the blade of frontiers or their "fearless" leader to find out that they had a vampire hiding underneath their noses for the last several days. Escaping his master by some slimy tentacled miracle had been one thing, this was an entirely different matter. And to think the gods didn't have some sick sense of humor. If his heart could still beat, it'd be hammering in his chest as their clerical leader kneeled down to examine the animal.
June was naive and blindly assumed the good in everyone. But he knew that she wasn't necessarily stupid, just warm hearted and soft. Those traits made you gullible and blind, which would get you killed. Even so, he knew that he had to work fast if he wanted to divert her attention elsewhere, lest he was the one at the receving end of a blade.
"The pigs dead my friend. Staring at it won't bring it back" He watched her shoulders tensed at the sound of his voice, her head slowly moving to glance over her shoulder to him, her brow knitted in inquiry.
"Come on, we can't fix these brain worms if we stop and gawk at every piece of carrion that you find". The longer they stayed here with his evidence, the more anxious he was becoming. It would have been one thing if she was a worshipper of Kelemvor or Tyr, hells, he would have taken a Lathanderian. Malusites were the kind of clerics his brothers and sisters would whisper about to get a rise of fear out of one another. Apparently, they were so fearsome toward the undead that not even Cazador dared to trifle with the affairs of such clerics. If they ever dared to make one their mark that night, they were rewarded with several weeks in the kennels.
"I'm only taking a quick look Astarion, I won't be long" she stated.
Fucking Hells, that was the other thing with her. She always seemed to put on some act of being a "hero". She'd already dragged them along on several needless errands already. He had hoped that she'd been smart enough to realize that the tieflings and their drama with the druid grove wasn't their problem. But of course she got them lumped into something that would be wasting their time. If anything, he'd argue that their problem was much more important given they were on some invisible clock that could potentially start ticking at any moment.
As she rose to her feet and turned to the group, Astarion sneered.
"And? Is it dead enough for you?" condescension dripped from his tone. The way her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, her lips pursing just enough to indicate that she was a little irritable, those little tells almost made him laugh. The sweet, naive Malusite was using as much patience as she could to be civil, to keep their little gaggle together. For a moment, his mind wandered to what kind of buttons he could push to finally remove that sweet facade off her face.
"There's a bite mark in its neck, it's been exsanguinated by what I can assume, is a vampire" Her assessment hit him like a splash of cold ice water, taking him out of his malicious little scheme of pushing her patience to it's limits.
Fuck.
Wait. No, no. She didn't insinuate that he was a vampire. Maybe he could still save this.
"I...Yes. It's been drained of blood with the wounds in its neck. I'd agree with you that it's been killed by a vampire" Save face, feign concern. "I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to worry you, they're ferocious creatures."
Juniper raise an eyebrow at him. "How oddly sweet of you Astarion. Am I warming up to you?" The sass that laced her voice didn't go unnoticed, as Gale and Shadowheart glanced at each other quietly as the scene played on. It'd become very apparent that their leader and Astarion had developed somewhat of a penchant for butting heads.
"You're just so sweet, I wouldn't want you to miss a good night's rest" he retorted. A small, baffled chuckle escaped her.
"They don't scare me. They're parasites, nothing more, nothing less" She sounded like it was as simple as that. That they were just something to dispose of, a pest.
A twinge of red hot anger flared in the spawns chest. What did she know?! Really?
Astarion felt a lump forming in his throat as his nostrils flared. For a moment, the fantasy of ripping out her throat flashed across his mind. He'd show her what who was nothing.
Quickly, he sucked in a breath, tamping down his initial reaction. Blowing up on her would ruin his cover, and while it was tempting to at the very least, rip her a new one verbally, his safety wasn't worth the consequences. As much as he hated to admit it, he did need them. "She's just a stupid girl, the sooner we deal with these brain worms, the better". He plastered on an easy and reassuring smile, the animosity he had disappearing like mist in the morning sun.
"You seem so confident. But don't worry that head of yours. I'll keep watch tonight. We won't have to worry about any nocturnal visitors". As much as he maintained his easy smile, the fear that was screaming at the back of his mind was telling him to scramble for safety. Either to kill or be killed, and it was taking everything in him not to lash out. All that he knew now, was that he wanted to be far away from this boar as fast as possible.
"Now please, let's go" the urgency lingered, obvious in the way he gestured for them to continue their trek through the woods.
"I agree, as much as this dead boar is interesting, I'd like to get a move on now" Shadowheart chimed, the cleric appeared to be rather bored and annoyed that they'd been staying here for as long as they had.
"Alright. Wyll mentioned the devil he was tracking wasn't far from here, let's see if we can find her" June stated.
As the four of them pressed forward, Astarion couldn't help but spare one last glance at the evidence from the night before, scolding himself for being so sloppy.