Chapter Text
All she remembered was the sun scorching her skin, then being consumed by a never-ending thirst. Searching for anything that bleeds, she picks up on a spoor and jolts in excitement. Human blood, ambrosial. Turning her head towards it, suddenly it’s not as satiating, but still, it will do. Better than one of a cervid. She settles and tracks the scent.
Her senses cut through the fog-ridden forest, guiding her straight to the source. Coming closer, the spoor drowns her nerves. Her compulsion erupts. She leaps over logs and closes in on her prey.
Aerith grips the stake holstered on her waist and watches her back. Just the wind. Slowly, she looks forward, but branches break. Whipping around, something lunges at her. Aerith points her stake out, but the figure’s movements slow, then stagger, stumbling onto her in a final grip. She guards her neck with her forearm, then observes the strange behavior. Her gaze lowers from its foggy eyes to its lips, which twitch between states of mind. The vampire’s grip fades, so Aerith shoves it away. It sprints back into the shadows. Strange.
She stiffens and scans the patch of forest for movement, but is met with stillness.
As she walks back to town, the event replays against her will. How weak that vampire was, and how it scurried away after a single push. Then the twitching lips, and that hesitation. When they’re weak like that, usually they still go for the bite, but it was like this one was making a decision. Maybe she’s reading too hard into it. That’s just one vampire versus the hundreds she’s fought. Perhaps it wanted to bite her all along, and its mouth only twitched because it was confused on how to execute. But when she pushed it away, it didn’t come back.
Was it injured? No, vampire wounds regenerate with haste. Could it be something about her? Only it could say so, but when starving, they become more animalistic and lose their ability to speak. To get it to talk, she needs blood, human blood. Like... the blood bag in the hunter’s medical supply. No, what if someone needs a transfusion?
She comes closer to abandoning this plan with each step, until she remembers. She’s the medic, and it’s her equipment. It can be replaced, and she’s already at the inn. Seems all that thinking made her forget her surroundings.
Later Aerith finds herself in that familiar patch of the woods. Her fingers drift towards the seal of the bag, then away. Wandering into the foliage with a lantern, leaves crunch down below and her gaze lowers. She could track its footprints, but instead, she looked away. It was searching for blood, and human blood was unlikely this far into the woods. If it was feeding at all, it would be feeding on wildlife.
If I were a bunny and I saw a deer bleeding out, I’d run far, far away.
Aerith avoids animal calls like the plague, traveling deeper where they’re seemingly absent. After minutes, her legs begin to ache. Getting into a kneel, she hears thumping. Her head snaps up. It’s a deer with blood pouring out its neck, and its eyes glowing in the lantern light. She springs up and runs to where it flees, then stops.
There the vampire was, slumped against a tree, slipping away.
Tifa stirs from some sort of drowsiness, the world unblurring before her eyes, which immediately widen in fear. Someone is watching her. Suddenly she can’t breathe. She heaves rapidly, choking on air.
She’s in the shack. Gazing at the woman, there’s something on her waist. A stake. This is it. Her heart sinks. She jerks but can’t move an inch. Panting, she fights against the restraints, rocking back and forth, writhing in her chair.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Aerith says, raising her palms outward.
Tifa locks up.
She lowers her hands and steps back. “In the forest…”
“...a while back, when you saw me, why didn’t you attack?”
Tifa’s brows furrow. “I saw you?”
Aerith raises hers.
“I don’t remember. Did I… hurt you? I’m sorry.”
“No… you didn’t.”
Tifa stills.
“So, you don’t remember?”
Tifa stares off at the wall. “I think…”
“...I think I was running. I just… needed…”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“I think… I was… on a camping trip,” her eyes stretched. “We were there… and we… saw an elk.”
“...Something was wrong with it. I think it was injured, but then- there was something there, and…” Her eyes drift to a corner.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but can this be… fixed?” Tifa’s eyes drift back.
Aerith looks off to the side, then back at Tifa, who’s waiting on her words like they could shatter her at any moment.
Aerith averts her gaze. “I’ll find a way.”
“…Really?” Tifa’s face lit up.
Aerith nods slowly, averting her eyes again, landing on the sunlight beginning to peer through the rickety door. Then, her eyes drift to Tifa’s wrists.
“I’m going to untie you.”
Aerith lowers herself into a kneel and reaches for her belt, pulling out a knife.
Tifa tenses.
She leans towards her wrists, cutting the ropes there, then lowers to her ankles, doing the same.
“…thank you…”
Aerith freezes, then rises and moves backwards. She places her hand on the knob of the door, cracking it open. Sunlight strips along half of her, and her gaze falls on Tifa.
“How often do you need to… feed?”
“Probably not today.”
“…Okay.” Aerith slips through, closing the door, leaving Tifa in the dark and her in the sun.