#whatdosendhelp

//Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers...

Got some art from the lovely @whatdosendhelp of my dumpster fire muse Ravi Eru-Maf.

{{ I’m super allergic to watermelon usually… but I wonder if I could get away with eating the Moon-and-star variety because it looks delicious 😗 Also I am all for Cyrodiil having all sorts of produce you just can’t get in Skyrim. If it doesn’t grow indigenously, you’d bet your ass they’d find a way to import the yummy stuff and start growing it within the province, if possible }}

[I’d check with a doc or have an epipen at the ready coz I’m not sure how different it is/if it still has the bits you’re allergic to but but yeye I getcha I kinda wanna get one too O3O

Hey there!

Send me “Your First Time?” to hear the story of the first time my muse ever experienced something supernatural.

Rowan swallowed. He could’ve felt guilty over how normal it all was now, but he didn’t. Now, he was as his sire was. Not perfectly the same, for they had their obvious moral differences, but in blood they were kin. 

It was strange to him how the creature he saw in the woods long ago was the very one responsible for the perpetuation of his life, and the gifts it had wrought.

“My ninth year as a mortal lad had begun that summer…”

Memory rippled and became vividly clear like a pond’s disturbed surface returning to flat, even placidity. 

It was foggier than usual around Castle Forsair and everyone seemed uptight. The clan whispered of some omen lurking out in the mist. He could sense how on edge they were by how quiet it was; his people absolutely did not observe a need to tread or speak soft at home. It was making him nervous.

When he passed the stables on his way out, he expected the horses to be anxious as well, but he found that was not the case. On the contrary, they were chewing contentedly at the fresh hay doled out that morning. It only doubled his unease.

He shouldn’t have gone, but go he did.

With all the fog, it was hard to make out the forms of the patrols as he crept into the forest, but any he saw were avoided to the best of his ability. The moment they caught him he’d face his mother’s wrath. He was brave though. Something was drawing him in. It felt like a magnetic force. He could do nothing but attend its utterly demanding call.

When he spied the alarming spectacle past a group of trees his callow young heart skipped a beat. Nothing should have eyes like that, he thought – yellow, soulless, glowing. He was staring. Watching. That was what he noticed first, aside the bloody dribble running over his chin. 

He didn’t spot the bleeding woodguard on the ground until a few seconds later. 

When Rowan recognized the clan colors, he realized he’d seen this man before. The last great feast. A spread of pheasant, venison, boar, and a river of ale and whisky to go around, leaving not a single Gael thirsting. It was a balmy get-together. He remembered this man being boisterous with other guards, throwing his head back to toss down a few drams, and then finally asking a woman he had his eyes on all evening to join a reel with him when the strings and pipes picked back up.

Now he was dying.

He was determined to try and live however, enough to pretend he was too weakened to resist, and then he bolted like a bat out of Oblivion. The unsettling man – thing – went after him. There wasn’t a chase at all. Just a quick lurch, an even shorter struggle, and suddenly his kinsman was snatched up, presumably for the second and last time. 

Terrible fangs showed swiftly before plunging into flesh. A strangled cry, a few twitches, and no more.

Rowan exhaled.

He wasn’t aware of whether he formed a coherent thought observing the scene. All he knew was fear, and ashamedly, some fascination. He couldn’t help his kinsman. He couldn’t draw an arrow or shout at the thing. He felt as if his feet had grown roots and secured him in the ground, and that his voice was stolen.

Drinking. The monster was taking blood.

Rowan started to back up. One foot behind in the leaf-dirt, a crunch, and the attacker continued to do nothing but watch him. No blink of those terrible eyes, always watching. Why? Was he planning something?

When he finished the man was dead, and he was dropped. His corpse lay on the mulch, soon to serve a flock of ravens.

“Go, mo leanbh.”

Rowan stopped breathing. It was talking to him, and it wasn’t even bothering to clean up its face. Blood was leaking from his mouth like water through a poorly patched dam.

“Go home.”

… What? Why did it care where he went? Why wasn’t it attacking him too?

“I mean it, now. Begone with you.”

Rowan didn’t argue but he was too frightened to do as he was told right away.

Perplexed beyond any birth of some rational explanation for what was going on, he stepped backwards slowly until he could no longer make out the thing’s presence or see his kinsman on the ground. Then… He turned and fled for home.

He said he would kill for her, and he had.

There in that room Rowan stood, right where the night’s chilling events transpired, staring down at Vitus’ cold covered body. He himself hadn’t moved since Caesa went to bed. It was up to him now to get rid of this.

It made his mind wander.

Some creatures... They devoured every bit, leaving no trace but bloodstained ground behind. Farkas did with the animals he felled. Raw red meat, innards, bones. Antlers and hooves eventually. All he avoided stomaching was fur. He didn’t like it. Would meticulously pull it all off with his teeth before eating, in fact. All Rowan could take was the blood.

He let the morbid train of thought fade, blinking his eyes gently as if to wake himself back to the moment. Sometimes, he was glad no one could see the way the monster in him curled its finger to bring him closer, and how it caused him to think. It wasn’t evil, but it was abnormal, very hard for non-vampires to understand. He did what he had to in order to survive. Any animal would say the same, if they could speak. But people weren't as forgiving nor understanding of vampires like they were animals. Maybe they’d see evil in him, if they saw beyond the skin.

He sighed and looked around the house, his hip serving as a prop for his hand. Vitus was gone for good. More importantly, Caesa was unharmed.

… Or was she? Perhaps to the naked eye, anyway.

How did she see him now? Was she scared to look at him? To hear his voice? Would she come out of that room speaking to him at all? Or did she see only a monster to reject; one that ravaged the living, spilling blood across the image he'd previously painted for her, cutting loose his ties to the man he wanted to be?

Whether or not she was, he was afraid.

Over the course of the next passing days, Rowan tip-toed around the Imperial like a skittish feline. It wasn't time for him to go home yet, though he began to feel more and more that it would help matters if he did.

He certainly had no need to go and feed high up in the Reachcliffs, with Vitus' blood flowing strong in him. It was one less issue to bring up with Caesa, for which he was thankful. He didn't want to draw attention to the necessity of preying on others, for a vampire, even though he’d just done it. Rowan found, in that time, he didn't want to mention the finer points of his vampirism at all. It wasn't in spite he decided this. If he had sullied her perspective of him... Wrought down the goodness she saw in him...

She hadn't asked him to be human. She had not asked that. But he wanted to try for her, and he would. He would be as human as his nature allowed.