Vincent stepped from his bedroom into the room of his manor that served as his personal shrine. Even by his standards, this was a dark space with muted wooden furniture, and a shelf wrapping around three of the four walls. Paintings hung above the shelf, evenly spaced, with urns and candles underneath all but one.

Outside, the spring sun shone brightly, relentlessly beating down against the walls of his home. Thankfully, only a trickle of its energy made it through the heavily tinted stained-glass that made up the windows, casting every room in his house in a subtle, muted rainbow.

Standing out for being different in the otherwise uniform room, the sole painting that lacked an urn seemed to stare at him, Florian’s eyes full of Adoration – that special blend of love, worship, and submissive desire that Vincent had so enjoyed cultivating these last twenty-five years. He would miss him a great deal. Vincent reverently approached the painting. It depicted Florian in his prime, fifteen-odd years prior. When his hair had just barely begun to turn gray, and the only wrinkles on his face were from the laughter they’d shared.

He’d chosen to put him in the center of the display, for now. The twenty-third thrall to memorialize and mourn. Flanked by portraits of Dorheim, his dwarven predecessor on one side, and Tarahn – the orcish woman that had been his thrall before even him – on the other. Florian would be in excellent company among them.

You foolish boy. She wasn’t a threat to me; you didn’t need to risk your skin for me like that.

Vincent gently placed the urn on the shelf, beneath the painting of Florian’s lively face. He fished two long candles from his pocket, and skewered them on the candle burns that were sent into the wood on either side of the urn.

Being the only one in the hall without candles lighting it, the painting was too dark to clearly see right now. That wouldn’t do at all. Vincent concentrated for a moment, visualizing the mistake already rectified. That was how things should be. That was how he intended them to be. He whispered the spell, “sradag,” manifesting his will that the candles light.

They made a pop, and a little flame flickered to life on each of them, adding a fraction more light to the room. Vincent thought it made all of the difference, and he took a moment to take in the sight of his beloved, now in his rightful place among his peers. After a moment of wistfully staring, he turned around, and strode out of the shrine. The realization that he was hungry hit him almost as soon as he’d left the somber atmosphere of the shrine. He’d forgone feeding for almost a week now, having practically been in a trance since Florian’s end, uninterested in his astronomical observations and the eclipse experiment, his gardens, and even his feeding.

Hells, I’ve not even bathed since he died.

Empowered by the slight relief he felt from having put Florian to rest – and motivated by the knowledge that he surely stank something fierce – he moved through the halls of his manor, slowly moving in the direction of the baths in the basement. He played with the ring around his finger, now due to have another little stone set into it. Assuming he could find a jeweler he trusted to touch it. If not, he could always ask the Artisan when they visited… assuming he didn’t flake on that whole affair, as he very dearly wished to. But he’d need a jeweler either way, and perhaps that should be who he considered to be his next thrall – a master jeweler, a craftsman without equal.

He shook his head to dismiss the thought. A master jeweler would already be in their forties at a minimum, and that wouldn’t do at all. A thrall that old was already two decades into the time they might have spent together, and would leave Vincent alone again far too soon to be tolerable. They would be too set in their ways to be useful. He needed… He needed someone young, as always. Someone he could mold, someone he could shape. Someone whose whole life would center on him.

________________

Manny rushed across the cobblestones of the First University with a bucket of steaming-hot water in one hand, a brush and an empty bucket in the other, and a handful of rags and a bottle of vinegar in the satchel she wore across her torso.

She mumbled her apologies a dozen times to twice as many people as she hurried past them and ushered them aside in the name of her rush to get to the third lecture hall. Some fool no doubt decided they could attend – or Shala forbid give – a lecture while piss-drunk, and that was why she’d been called over.

After all, why go outside and throw up on the stones, or into a latrine? Why make your mess somewhere you could tolerate it, when you could just soil the floors you had to walk on, safe in the knowledge that you could count on the elf you scarcely pay to rush in and clean it up for you?

She used her hips to press open the doors into the correct building, nudging them aside when neither student nor other faculty seemed inclined to help her despite having her hands full. “Hall three,” she repeated to herself in a whisper, as she got her bearings and looked around. The halls of the University were all so damned similar! But hall three would be – should be – that way, she decided. So she turned left, and resumed her mad dash to get the situation dealt with.

She cursed the thought of whoever had had the gall to not only cause a mess while she was working, but send for her to come deal with it immediately. She already knew how this would play out, too. She’d be stuck dealing with this mess for half of an hour, maybe longer. Then she’d get behind schedule. And then that bastard would refuse to pay her for the day, unless she stayed late and finished.

If this had happened after she finished her work, she could have at least haggled for a little bonus to stay late and deal with it. But, no – it had to happen two hours into her day, when she was on the opposite end of the campus.

When she got to the third lecture hall, she was a little surprised to see the door was closed. Normally, when she was summoned, the people doing so at least had the good sense to let her in. She pressed her ear to the ornate wood, and listened. She could definitely hear voices on the other side.

She knocked on the wood with the handle of her brush, and waited until the voices stopped and the echo of the knock died down to open the door.

She was met by a sea of students dressed in the pompous red outfits that were the school’s uniform, all of them facing her with wide, curious eyes. On the auditorium’s stage, a professor whose name eluded Manny – and whose identity was instead defined by her well-known penchant for abusing custodians – scowled at her, with one hand still raised up, pointing at a map of… somewhere, behind her. “What is it?” The professor hissed, tucking her brown hair behind one ear.

“You… uhm… You called for me?” Manny tried, as it dawned on her she was almost certainly not in the right place.

The woman on the stage rolled her eyes at Manny. “Does it look like I called for you, elf?”

“Is this not hall three?”

Snickers rose from the audience, and the professor huffed. “Can’t you read? Three is the next one,” she said, pointing down the hall Manny had just come from.

It took all of Manny’s restraint to politely nod and back out of the hall, rather than vent her frustrations on the woman. She couldn’t afford to snap and yell, couldn’t even grumble and complain without risking the bit of pay she was able to take home.

When Manny got to the correct lecture hall a few moments later, she scrutinized the door. Were there really signs on them? Most of the doors in the University looked like this, engraved with big sweeping shapes and patterns. But even when she looked for it, she didn’t recognize it as looking like any kind of text or glyphs. Not that she’d know much about that.

This door being closed too was a little concerning, but armed with that hag’s directions, she again knocked, waited for the echo of the knock to fade, then opened the door to step into the hall. Unlike the first room she’d tried, this one was nearly empty, with only a handful of people on and around the lecture stage. And equally unlike the caustic woman teaching history in the next room over, these people actually looked happy to see her. All but one of them wore the bright red most of the people who worked or studied at the First University tended towards.

“There you are, Manny!” Declared one. A friendly old coot named Brandain, who was a dwarven man with a glaucoma in one eye. Manny thought he was… Well, she didn’t know the name of his field of study – but she knew it involved bugs, from what she’d seen of his work while sweeping in and around his rarely-empty office.

Manny jogged up the aisle that ran down the length of the lecture hall, careful not to spill any of her wash water on the carpet. On the stage, Brandain, two of his peers whose names she had never bothered to learn, and someone who Manny assumed was a priestess by her white robes, were fussing over a human woman with a dazed expression. A particularly big puddle of vomit was waiting for her nearby, and Manny sighed at the sight of it. As nice as it was that she’d been right and knew to come prepared, she’d still dearly hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

“Tell me what happened again,” the priestess asked, as Manny pulled her typically-elven orange curls into a ponytail, drew a few rags from her pouch, and began the stomach-churning effort of cleaning up.

Brandain sighed. “Like I said, she asked to see a specimen – I agreed, thinking she meant one of the Cornon beetles. Before I knew it, she’d gotten herself bitten by a frightwasp, and took off running.”

The priestess – an attractive young human woman who wore distinctly purple-hued make-up, with eyes and hair nearly the same shade of brown – clicked her tongue, and poured a potion into the stunned woman’s mouth before she whispered a few spells. Orange and purple light burst to life along the woman’s skin, starting at the tips of her fingers, and quickly spreading to engulf her whole body. The woman gasped, and Manny decided she should concentrate on cleaning, rather than scrutinize how a reckless human looked when she had spells cast on her.

“There,” hummed the priestess, happily. “I think that should help.”

“W–What happened?!” The woman asked. Manny had long perfected the art of pretending the job of cleaning up vomit was captivating beyond belief, but to stop herself from listening in was a skill she’d never quite mastered. “I…”

Brandain spoke over her. “You are lucky priestess Alara was able to get here as quickly as she did! What were you thinking, sticking your hand into a jar with a frightwasp in it like that?!” He started to usher the woman away, and he and each of his colleagues began taking turns to scold her.

And, looking at the mess she was stuck cleaning up because of her, Manny couldn’t say she disagreed with that. She kept cleaning after they were gone, pouring hot water and vinegar on the mess occasionally, then using the rags to absorb it and wringing them out into the empty bucket she’d brought. She just wished she’d brought more of them.

She whistled a little tune she remembered hearing as a child as she worked. It was so easy to close her eyes and picture herself there again, scrubbing the floors of the orphanage, trying to be useful enough to be allowed to stay longer than she was supposed to. This was a little better, frankly. At least now they actually paid her to do it, rather than stringing her along with promises before kicking her out when she’d barely gone through puberty.

“Are you ever going to notice me standing behind you, Sunset?” Asked a woman’s voice.

Manny yelped and scrambled up to her feet, then found herself looking down at the priestess with the purple makeup. She wore a medallion around her neck that Manny recognized as belonging to the sex goddess, Ishara, and had a smirk on her face.

“Oh, don’t get up on my account,” the priestess purred. “I was rather enjoying the show.”

Manny cocked her head at that. “You… You were?” The priestess took a step closer, and Manny had to look down to keep meeting her gaze.

Humans can be so short.

“Oh, of course I was. Shapely elven figure, bright hair, whistling a tune, working up a sweat on her knees. What’s not to love about that?”

Manny took a step back and blushed. “I… I’m flattered, but–”

“But what?” Asked the priestess. “Surely you’re no stranger to flirtations. I’d wager my god blesses you with attention from half of the city.”

Manny blinked. The priestess wasn’t wrong to assume she was at the receiving end of the occasional pass, but… so brazenly? By a priestess of Ishara? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “I… Alara, right? I’m flattered, really, but–”

“But what, Sunset?”

“Sunset?” Manny repeated. She’d hardly noticed the nickname the first time, but decidedly disliked it the second.

The priestess, Alara, reached up and tugged her own hair. “Your curls, elf. They’re orange, like a sunset.”

“Oh,” said Manny, uncertainly. She recalled the orphanage again, now thinking about being teased for the things that made her an elf, rather than the songs. Her big eyes, her slowed aging and maturing, and of course, her orange hair. “I… I don’t think I like that nickname.”

“Well then,” began the priestess with a grin. “Why don’t you give me your actual name, instead?”

Manny glanced down at her cleaning project. It was far from done, but… gods. This would have to do until she could come back later to finish, she decided. “No, thank you,” she shortly said, as she knelt back down to gather her supplies. She did not care for this priestess and how she looked at her. “I… uhm, I don’t like women,” she hastily added. She then left as quickly as she could, with a half-empty bucket in either hand, rags and brush stuffed into the one she’d used as a sump while cleaning.

“Alright, then,” purred the priestess. Manny looked over her shoulder at the woman as she rushed away, and was unsettled by the predatory grin on her face. “I’ll ask again, next time.”

Don’t count on it.

________________

Vincent had two things on his mind as he made his way through the streets of Astoria, and towards the First University.

First and foremost, he was going there to study. As big as it was, his personal library only had a few thousand volumes in it. That was enough to keep him busy and entertained, but not enough to research new topics. He had most of the reputed books about astronomy in his collection, of course. But that hardly helped him when he wanted to tinker with alchemy or thaumaturgy – let alone things entirely outside of his comfort zone.

The other reason was far baser. Feeding. Florian’s demise had staunched his appetite, but it was beginning to rear its insistent head again. He could call on his stock to feed, of course. But he didn’t dare touch the people he’d groomed right now. He was liable to go too far and kill them by mistake, if he didn’t conquer his grief first.

The clouds above were still faintly lit from below by the setting sun, but it wasn’t so bright that he couldn’t comfortably go outside yet. The spring equinox was already past, anyways. To stay indoors until it was dark would only get more and more impractical for the next few months.

The First University was a large campus – practically a neighborhood of Astoria in its own right. Housing for the faculty and students, lecture halls, workrooms, administration buildings, libraries, and even a bathhouse and bakery, adding up to a dozen buildings built along the Torine, separated from the rest of the city by short stone walls topped with cast iron fences. There were plenty of gates to get in and out, and they rarely closed, but it still lent an air of distinction.

He politely nodded to the guardsmen that tended one of the gates as he passed, decidedly going against the flow of people as the activities in the University wound down for the day, and most wanted to enjoy the amenities of the rest of the city. That served Vincent swimmingly. The libraries never closed, and even if he didn’t have… plans, he still preferred to read in the silence of night, rather than contend with rowdy students.

As he crossed the campus, he passed a fountain that roughly marked the center of the University. A life-sized statue in the fountain’s center depicted a strapping, very naked young man with a beard, his hand raised to hold a weapon that had either been stolen or rusted away over the centuries. At the base of the fountain, a young woman with hair the color of the sunset-dyed clouds overhead was picking up wilted flowers, half-burned candles, and scraps of soggy paper and parchment, then throwing them into a wheelbarrow with a scowl on her face.

“Are they still putting out flowers for that drowned alchemist?” He asked. He hadn’t been to the University since around the solstice, and the man’s death had been the topic of a tremendous amount of gossip at the time.

The young woman looked up at him. Her eyes were as brightly orange as her hair, and big enough that she could only be an elf, not to mention the pointy ears. It took her a moment to parse his question. “His wife, actually,” she eventually said. “They found her caravan abandoned, and one of her guards dead, last I heard.”

“How sad,” said Vincent, only half-meaning it.

The elf shrugged. “I guess. I just wish they’d put this junk somewhere it didn’t get rained on and grow moldy.”

Vincent considered that. It struck him as a very… misanthropic thing, for her to complain about the cleanup, rather than lament a couple apparently dying within a few months of each other. It was a very strange attitude for someone who looked to be barely an adult by elven standards to have. He rather liked it. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose that would be more considerate to you.”

The elf shrugged again, and turned around to resume her work, seemingly done with the short conversation. He considered pressing her, but thought better of it. He wouldn’t want to take too much of an interest, only to succumb to his urges and get carried away. The scene began to take shape in his mind already. The sight of a dull expression, the feeling of a limp body with a weakening pulse, and the taste of–

“What in the hells are you looking at?” Asked the elf. It snapped Vincent from his reverie, and he made a point of banishing his dull gawk. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head for a moment and cleared his throat to consider his words. “I’m fine, yes. Just… just haven’t eaten in a while.”

The elf smiled wistfully, and said “I know what that’s like,” as she pointed roughly in the direction he was going anyway. “The bakers should still have something, if you can afford it.”

“Thank you. That’s very thoughtful…?” Vincent lied, his intonation an unspoken question for her name.

“Manny,” the elf said, after a pause that spoke volumes about how secluded a person she might be.

Manny, huh? Such an odd name for an elf.

“Vincent,” Vincent said with a gesture to himself, as he started to walk off, discarding her advice to seek the bakery, but committing the rest of the encounter to memory.

________________

Manny watched the strange, pale man walk away, and shook her head as she finished the last task of the day. Had she… Had she imagined it, or were his eyes red? She supposed it didn’t matter. She’d cleaned up the pile of decrepit offerings, and her wheelbarrow was almost full with rotting flowers, soggy letters, and terrible sketches of the couple in question.

There was no way these people all actually cared about this couple – a history professor and her wizard husband. It was just that they were just wealthy and noble enough that their peers would judge each other for not at least making a show of pretending.

Nobody cared about people like her at all, of course. Not even enough to pretend, like they were doing for these two. Poor commoners in general already tended to be forgotten. Nobody cared about you unless your father was their landlord, or your uncle their liege. But someone like her – unskilled, unknown, and unrelated? Hells, even other poor people ignored her. Only a few people in this world would notice if she were to disappear, and of those, only Zorah would care.

Manny made a point of putting it out of her mind as she carted the wheelbarrow to the waterfront. The First University was big enough to produce as much waste as any other district of the city, and wealthy enough that they could afford a barge to take that garbage somewhere else. That meant that this job’s biggest advantage over any other was that she was at least able to dump the wheelbarrow onto that, rather than it being up to her to find somewhere to empty it.

After dumping the wheelbarrow out onto the barge, and a brief detour to put it in its shed, Manny looked up to see that the sun had already set, and the sky was getting darker and darker by the minute. That meant it was high time to get paid and go home. As she approached the gray stone administration building, the lights of magic, candles, and fireplaces she knew were within illuminated many of its windows. Those offices all looked so comfortable, so cozy. They looked warm and inviting, and far too nice for the mostly selfish people that actually worked in them.

Selfish scum like the man she had to speak to inside. Her boss, Darim.

He was a gluttonous human man – weighing half as much again as she, despite only being three quarters of her height. She could already picture him as she climbed the stairs, hunched over a roasted beast that even her nightmares knew better than to taunt her by showing.

His office was on the second floor, third door from the left. She got to the door, then counted again, to be sure – one, two, and this is the third – then timidly knocked on it. A few seconds passed, and the echo of the knock was far quieter in the small and carpeted corridor than it had been in the large, sheer, stone lecture building.

“Come in,” came the man’s nasal voice. Manny hesitated the briefest moment to steel herself, then opened the door, and poked her head in.

“Mister Darim?” She asked. The stink of Aldressan pipeweed smoke burned her throat almost immediately, and she started to cough. The nasty little man raised an eyebrow like it was funny that the smell bothered her so much. “Mister–” She tried again, but couldn’t prevent a second fit of coughs any more than she could prevent the first.

“What’s wrong, Manny? This is from your homeland, isn’t it?”

“I–” Manny started, as her coughs settled down. “I wouldn’t know, sir. I’ve never been outside of Astoria.”

“Tragic,” said the man. His voice dripped with contemptuous sarcasm. “I take it you’re finished with the day’s work?”

Manny nodded. “And then some. There was an incident with a frightwasp, and–”

The man tisked to silence her, and reached into a drawer under his desk. She could hear the clatter of metal coins, and his eyes briefly flicked down to look at what he was doing. His breathing was heavy and wheezing, and she saw his lips move from his muttered counting of the coins. He was repulsive.

A few seconds of this passed, and eventually the man’s hand reemerged. He dropped her pay on the leather writing surface of his desk, and Manny hastily picked up the coins. Unlike him, she at least had the decency to count them in silence.

“This isn’t enough,” she quickly realized.

“Oh?” Asked the man, with a revolting smirk on his face.

“This is twenty-two copper Scales. I’m owed a silver Claw and a quarter.”

“So?”

“So, this isn’t that!” Manny spat, as she dropped the coins back onto his table. Several of them clattered to the floor and rolled away. “A Claw is worth twenty Scales, everyone knows that! So if you’re paying me in copper, you owe me twenty-five, not twenty-two.”

“What can I say, Manny?” The man began. “Silver’s not worth what it used to be, what with the Cereni trade routes disrupted as they are.”

“Oh, really?” Challenged Manny. “Silver’s worth less than normal?”

The man nodded.

“That makes this a funny fucking time for you to decide to start paying me in copper then, doesn’t it?”

“Manny, I’m doing you a favor here,” the slimy man said. “If you take your pay in silver, your landlord’ll just tell you you owe him more than normal.”

Manny balled her fists, and leaned forward on the desk. She could smell him from here, even through the stench of the smoke. “I’ll take my chances. Pay me. One Claw and at least seven scales.”

The man scoffed. “I’m not paying you extra, Manny.”

“Really?” She asked. “Because I had to stay late to clean up more crap than normal, and you just told me silver’s worth less than normal, anyway. Two extra coppers sounds more than fair, then.”

The slimy man considered that. After just a moment, he got that look in his eye. It was the look that told her he’d just gotten the same idea as the priestess earlier, and a hundred other people before him. “I suppose I could be… convinced to pay you that,” he said, with what Manny was sure he thought was a suave smile.

“Me too,” agreed Manny. “I think I saw Professor Brandain’s office still had the lights on. I could just go ask him what he thinks about what you’re trying to pay me.”

The smile melted from Darim’s face, and that look left his eyes – replaced by the contemptuous glare she was used to getting from people when she didn’t take the bait and go for their offered affections. “Normal pay, then. Silver claw, and five copper Scales.”

“No,” Manny said. “A Claw and seven Scales, or you can find someone else willing to get up to her elbows in vomit and rotting parchment while you explain away all of the rumors I’ll spread about you on the way out.”

“Fine!” Snarled the man, as he tossed a Claw into her hands, then slid seven of the Scales on the table towards her. Manny quickly picked up what she was owed. She whistled the same tune she’d whistled while cleaning as she stuffed it into her satchel, as much to taunt him as to drown him out. Then she walked out, and pulled the door to his office closed behind her.

As she made her way down the stairs, she reflected that this wasn’t even that bad of an encounter, by that prick’s standards.

________________

Vincent sat on a sofa by one of the library’s fireplaces, with a volume about fae logic and bargains across his lap. His eyes were pointed at the pages, but he wasn’t really reading. His mind kept wandering. While he was occupied – be it with bathing or by crossing the city – it had been easy to tell himself he wanted to read. But now that he was here, actually looking at a page, he found it was too… involved. He kept thinking about poor Florian – kept losing his place in the paragraph to the mental imagery of his demise.

He shook his head. He didn’t want to dwell on it – didn’t want to think about it. Perhaps he should have fed before leaving, after all. It wouldn’t do him any good to spare his stock if in doing so he got so lethargic that he couldn’t think straight.

Florian would have already found me someone, by now.

He grunted, annoyed by himself. They’re only thralls, his peers might tell him. It’s their purpose to die in our place. Or, you’re a fool to mourn them like lovers.

Perhaps they were right. Perhaps he should just… entertain their ideas. To seek a thrall that would serve him as a bloodhound, rather than a lapdog. To be as miserable and lonely as so many of them, with servants that obeyed him out of fear, rather than love.

But… No, that was absurd. It was grief and that damned hunger talking, tempting him with basic relief, but not salvation. Cruelty… Cruelty didn’t suit him. Cruelty made for thralls that recoiled from his touch, rather than lean into it. It made for rebellions to quash, rather than loyalty to reward.

It could be fun – certainly would be fun in the short term. It would… It would feel good to torment Florian’s murderer in effigy, he knew. It would be invigorating, even thrilling. Until the guilt set in. If only he’d had the restraint not to kill the woman that took his Florian from him on the spot. Then he’d have a means to guilt-free, cathartic, glorious indulgence.

It hardly mattered to him whether she was actually to blame – hells, he had every reason to assume she wasn’t, with the long-healed bite marks in her neck that implied she might well have been a rival’s thrall.

Vincent remembered he was still holding the book, and grunted again as he rose from the sofa, abandoning his plans to read for the day. He wasted no time in putting it on the shelf he’d retrieved it from, and began to make his way out. He’d just have to go home, and… And he’d see if he found something to sate him on the way there, he supposed.

A glance out of the library’s big windows, though, gave him pause. The sky was black with clouds, and there wasn’t a star to be seen. He expected it would begin to rain any minute, and that made the prospect of remaining alone with his thoughts in the library slightly less revolting by comparison.

“Ça va?” Asked a woman’s voice from behind him, a casual greeting in the divine language, favored by clergy and used for their spells. He refocused his eyes, checking the reflections in the windows.

“Alara,” he said to the woman standing behind him by way of greeting. He didn’t bother turning to look at her, only glancing at her reflection, partially eclipsed his own. “It’s been a while.”

“So it has, Lord Borohon,” Alara replied. “I wanted to give my condolences.”

Vincent stiffened slightly. “Condolences?” He asked, feigning ignorance.

“Your thrall, Vincent – the simpering blond man. Something must have happened to him, or he’d never have let me get this close.”

“Florian,” Vincent whispered.

“Right,” said Alara, as she stepped closer. “Florian. I liked him.”

“You hardly knew him.”

“True,” conceded Alara. “But I knew his station. I can respect someone who’s confident in their lot in life, even if it’s one of humble service to their betters.”

Vincent quirked an eyebrow, casting his eyes down to the medallion around her neck, proclaiming her to serve the goddess of love and lust. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Alara’s reflection grinned at him in the windows. “That I do,” she agreed. “It’s such a… Such an undervalued skill, to obey. So many people seem to fight it, even though it’s their first nature to do so.”

Vincent crossed his arms and turned to face her. “What are you getting at?”

“Oh, just… thinking, I suppose,” Alara said, stepping forward. “You’ll want to replace him soon, won’t you? Your kind needs someone to dominate.”

“Are you volunteering?” He growled. He wanted her to back off. He didn’t think he was ready to move on from Florian yet, and certainly didn’t want to discuss it with her.

Alara forced a mirthless chuckle. “Hardly. I was thinking more along the lines of helping.”

“I don’t need help.”

Again, Alara chuckled. Though, this time it sounded a little closer to sincere. “Yes, you do. You’re a mighty elder vampire. And you’re crippled by melancholy and loneliness. My Lord won’t object if I–”

“I said no,” Vincent said, a little louder. He wasn’t ready to move on from Florian, and he wouldn’t be until someone new caught his eye. The mere idea of letting this woman force it with her god’s magic repulsed him. “Don’t suggest it again, if you know what’s good for you.”

The priestess clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes before she began to walk away. “Oh, fine,” she purred. “I have a feeling my Lord will bless you soon enough, with or without my help.”

________________

Manny stepped out of the pouring rain, and into the balmy air of the crowded tavern. The smell of people and of drink washed over her immediately, and the sounds of drunken singing told her subconscious that she was finally – for real – done with work for the day. Formally named Île de Pierre for some mythical island Manny’d never bothered to learn about, the place’s many regulars just called it The Rock.

“Manny!” One of the patrons cheerfully called before slapping her on the shoulder.

“Hey, Jake,” Manny told the young man, once she looked to see who it was. His pale skin had the flushed glow of alcohol about it already, and he had a lopsided grin on his face. “See Zorah about?”

Jake smiled, and pointed at the ever-crowded counter with a nod.

The Rock was a popular, low-class joint. Cheap ale and vodka flowed all day, often for only one or two coppers per glass. It was where the harmless runts of society liked to gather – orphans, refugees, street rats, and the like. They were almost all people with very few opportunities, who had somehow evaded getting press-ganged into the army and navy, and never wound up joining any mercenary outfits or gangs – pickpockets, not highwaymen.

As Jake had indicated, Zorah was propped up against the bar’s counter, mournfully looking at a half-empty mug of ale like it had insulted her mother so deeply that she’d been forced to concede the point. She was a human with tan skin, and dark hair that in all the years Manny had known her, she had never let get past neck length.

“You look miserable,” Manny noted as she wrestled her way to the stool next to her. “Did anything bad happen, today?”

Zorah briefly looked up, and forced a smile. “Nope,” she said. “Unfortunately, nothing good enough to distract me from our… situation happened, either.” The situation Zorah meant was a loanshark that had been harassing them for several weeks, now. He’d shown up one morning, banging on the door of the room they rented together, demanding Zorah pay up, and settle a debt that her parents had allegedly run up.

The fact that Zorah had no idea who her parents were, that he wasn’t able to prove she was on the hook for their alleged debt, and that he didn’t even know what their names were hadn’t hindered the man, and the brute had taken to ambushing one or both of them every few days.

Fairly typical trouble, by their standards.

“Well,” Manny began. “Darim tried to swindle me, and I played my cards right. So…” She reached into her pocket, and held up a few copper coins. “I think we can cough up for a bottle today.”

Zorah’s face lit up, and she flagged down the bartender. “Well, I suppose that probably qualifies as good news.”

“I thought you’d say so,” Manny said. Zorah was… an interesting person, she thought. By all accounts, she was actually a few years younger than Manny, but that hadn’t stopped the human from taking on the role of a big sister, back in Shala’s Embrace. She’d just grown up so quickly compared to Manny, and even the other human kids. She remembered simply being in awe of how quickly she learned things and how productive and competent she became, while Manny was slower about everything, and helpless by comparison.

She’d left the orphanage with Manny, even though she didn’t have to. She could have stayed for another two, maybe even three years. But she was already enough of an adult to deal with the world, and Manny just hadn’t been.

Ten years later, Manny had caught up. She looked like an adult when she looked in the mirror now, and she’d long since learned that elven children needed about three years to mature as much as humans did in two. She’d also learned she would live… a lot longer than Zorah would. She didn’t like to think about that.

“Damn,” Zorah said, as the bartender put a bottle of vodka on the counter between them, and Manny at least had the presence of mind to pay the man. “Now you look as bummed as I felt before you came in.”

Manny shrugged. “Just… thinking,” she said.

“You should know better, Manny – thinking’s dangerous,” said Zorah, her voice practically dripping with sarcasm as she uncorked the bottle, and took a swig. She coughed a few times, then offered Manny the bottle.

Manny took it, and matched Zorah’s swig with one of her own. The cheap-tasting liquid burned her throat on the way down, and warmed her belly once there. “They’re still pretending to care about the dead alchemist, and… And now they’ve decided to assume his missing wife strung herself up or something, and are putting down flowers for the both of them.”

Zorah scowled at that. “Yikes.”

“Uh-huh,” agreed Manny, before she took another swig, and offered the bottle back to Zorah. “And… And it just made me think. Who the hell is going to pretend to care about me, huh? When I die, who’s going to pile up flowers for me? Pretend they cared about me?”

Zorah snorted. “Not me. I’ll be far too busy being a Gilded One.”

Manny raised an eyebrow, and scoffed. “Oh, really? You’re going to become an angel after you die? You think any god’s going to pick you?”

“They’d better,” Zorah said, as she took another drink from the bottle. “After that shithole of an orphanage? I think Shala owes me.”

“Me, too!” Agreed a half-asleep man a few stools over. Manny and Zorah wordlessly agreed to ignore him with a single shared look.

“Oh, she owes you,” Manny agreed. “She owes us both big time. I doubt she’ll settle her debts when the time comes, though. We’ll just be born again into another shitty life.”

Zorah made a defeated gesture. “Oh, you’re probably right. But it’s nice to think about, isn’t it?”

________________

Vincent trudged through the rain, crossing the city to get home as quickly as possible. He should have known better than to go out so soon, he now realized. It was always an exercise in futility to try to move on so quickly, and Alara’s antics had only served to remind him of that.

The same dark thoughts that had plagued him when he left home still haunted him now, tormenting him with visions of revenge he’d never get, or images of deeds better left undone. He… He didn’t want to feel like this. Didn’t want to feel so angry, aimless, and lonely. Didn’t want to take his frustrations out on bystanders.

Though, he might not be able to stop himself. The longer he stalled on feeding, the less likely it became that he’d have the discipline to stop before he went too far. Especially without a thrall to dampen his passions.

The sounds of the night were all around him. Rats scurried across the street, couples argued in their homes, and guards yelled at troublemakers. Rain tapped away at everything it could reach, pattering on shingles and panes of glass, forming little streams of filth running through the gutters.

Overhead, the sky split and a bolt of lightning struck the top of a nearby temple building, the thunder felt as much as heard. The bolt of lightning he’d thrown a week ago had been even louder.

He shuddered slightly, as much at the chill of the wind and rain as at the memory. These would continue to torment him, he knew. He wouldn’t find peace until he found a new thrall. Two forces clashed in his mind, their conflict interrupting his every quiet moment. The need to grieve Florian, and the need to replace him. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t find anyone remotely suited or appealing, that he’d just wallow in the grief until it drove him mad. The other part – smaller, but quickly growing – was desperate for just that. For that thrill of breaking someone into submission, then shaping them to his every need.

Though, today he’d just settle for someone disposable to feed off of.

The sounds of laughter, raucous and lively, started to break through the rain. It tugged at his mind. It was a near-compulsive desire to stalk whatever crowd was so enjoying itself, and pick off a straggler. He could see the source already, too. A dive bar, still open despite the late hour, full of the drunk and hapless. Light poured out from the lead glass windows, casting the alleyways around it in warm, orange light. He slowed his pace as he got closer, the allure too great.

There were a few alcoves and awnings about, places to shelter from the rain, and watch. Hardly anyone left the place right now, most not willing to brave the pouring rain, and what few did leave did so at a run. But he could wait. He could settle into an alcove, wait for the rains to die down, and watch. The gods knew he had plenty of memories to keep him company until then.

________________

Manny felt good. Really, really good. She’d shared about half of the bottle with Zorah so far, singing along to the drinking songs, and… And where was Zorah, anyways? Zorah… Zorah was such a short little human, especially compared to her. She was always around, always… Always there, but she had a tendency to fade into a crowd.

Gods, Manny wished she could blend into a crowd. Maybe if she were to move to Aldressa, but… well, that would pose its own problems, wouldn’t it? She… she didn’t know her given name, other than that it definitely, absolutely, without-a-fucking-doubt was not Magnanimity. Elves had softer, breathier names. With thuh sounds in them, and lots of long, languid, flowing vowels. And she didn’t know how to speak Aldressan, either. She didn’t know elven customs, didn’t know who her parents had been. Hells, she wasn’t even completely sure where Aldressa even was.

Right, Zorah.

Manny slowly looked around the tavern, careful not to move her head too much, lest the world start to spin even faster. There were… There were a lot of people about. Orcs, and elves, and dwarves, and lots of humans. But… she just couldn’t seem to see her human.

She was tired. She wanted to go home, wanted to lie down and rest, probably even sleep, even if elves didn’t strictly need sleep the way humans did. But… could she? She glanced about again, eyelids heavy, bottle in hand out of fear someone would steal it when she looked away from it.

She spent several minutes looking across the room, checking for anyone who even vaguely resembled Zorah, but came up empty. The occasional bell of the tavern’s door told her people were starting to leave, that it was quickly becoming time for her to leave as well. Perhaps Zorah had just already gone?

That made… some sense, she supposed. She’d probably found some guy that tickled her fancy, and… Manny blinked, and shook her head. Zorah might have flaked on her, but she wouldn’t presume. She’d wait here, and either Zorah would find her, or she’d be told to leave at closing time.

Manny sat there for another half hour, occasionally sipping from her bottle or glancing about to see if Zorah had turned up. Slowly, the place emptied out, people leaving in little groups every few minutes, until it was just her and her bottle.

“Manny?” The bartender called, and Manny looked up. He was a grumpy human man with braided long hair. “Go home.”

“But…” Manny began. “Where’s Zorah?”

The bartender clicked his tongue, and rolled his eyes. “She didn’t tell you? She left with a fellow a few hours ago.”

“Well, tha’s just typical Zorah, isn’t it?” Manny slurred as she struggled to stand. When she managed it, and the stool was but a memory and a sore spot on her butt, she felt like she should be crowned queen of the world for the feat. “I was… uhm… I was worried about her, y’know?!”

The bartender shrugged. “Be careful on the way home.”

She spent a few moments wrestling with the door, then got it open, immediately meeting with a soberingly brisk breeze before she stepped right into a puddle.

“F–fuck!” She cursed, as the cold water seeped straight through her tattered, old boots, and soaked her socks. Maybe… One more sip, against the chill.

She raised the bottle to her lips and swallowed the burning liquid, eagerly. She took a few moments, looking around at the alleyways round her. She was… She was pretty sure the one opposite the tavern was the quickest way home, so she started in that direction with a shrug. She almost tripped a few times, staggering as she went. But she didn’t particularly mind.

The tune she’d whistled earlier came to mind, along with some rude lyrics to match. A grin sprouted on her face, and she started to quietly sing.

________________

Vincent blinked in surprise. The flow of people out of the tavern had steadily slowed, and nobody leaving had appealed to him very much. He’d practically given up already, and was about to leave, when she stumbled out of the bar, cursing and singing about the crown prince’s promiscuity, and barely able to stand up straight.

The misanthropic elf with bright orange curls that stood out even in the dead of night thanks to his Sight. She would more than suffice. She would be vulnerable and easy. He watched her stumble into an alley while only narrowly avoiding tripping in the process, and rose from his alcove to follow.

He stalked after her for a good ways, slipping from shadow to shadow, watching to see if anyone else was taking an interest. That hunger nagged at him, urging him to pounce, to hold her down and– He shook his head. He was going to be sensible about this. He wasn’t going to give in to his kind’s depraved nature any more than he needed to. He would… He’d be gentle. He’d be careful. As some kin of his might put it, he’d be merciful.

When she’d gone far enough, and he was satisfied she’d stumbled into a sufficiently secluded bit of alley, the perfect opportunity presented itself to him. She’d slowed down, leaning against a great big barrel to catch her breath. All he had to do now was get her to look up at him, to see the hunger in his eyes, and she’d be Resigned to being his, at least for a few hours. He stuck two fingers into his mouth, and let out a sharp whistle.

The elf’s head snapped up at the sound, her expression briefly one of curiosity until she saw him. In the darkness of the alley, his Sight meant that he saw the heat of her body more than he saw the colors. That was plenty to see the Resignation set in, and it thrilled him. Her jaw slackened, and the bottle she’d been nursing slipped from her grasp. It shattered on the ground, and she didn’t seem to even notice.

He quickly strode towards the elf, the thrill of a hunt and the anticipation of ending his fast speeding up the beat of his heart. It put a smile on his face, even if this wasn’t quite a real hunt. A sober person with any strength of will might have resisted the Resignation, might have tried to fight or flee. Vincent tried to avoid giving them that chance, if at all possible.

“Hi…” Mumbled the elf, a dumb grin on her face, as he took her, and firmly pinned her to a wall. It wasn’t the smile of the Adoration, but… Gods, it sure reminded him of it.

“Saluton, elfo,” he said, greeting the elf in Aldresssan Elvish.

Her big, orange eyes blinked at him several times, not quite looking directly into his own in the darkness. He realized she’d not understood even that simple greeting.

“You don’t know the Aldressan tongue?” He asked.

She smiled, but shook her head. “I… I…” She tried, but trailed off. Resignation was a powerful thing, especially to a drunken mind.

“An elf that doesn’t speak her people’s tongue, and goes by a human name. How very interesting,” he purred. “How old are you, Manny?”

“T–twenty… twenty-seven,” the elf managed, with some effort. Vincent smiled at the answer. That put her at the very beginning of elven adulthood. She’d live for well over a century, perhaps even two. She’d be an excellent–

He shook his head. He was getting ahead of himself. He did need a thrall – all vampires did. But he wasn’t in any shape to decide on things like that right now, with his thirst at its highest, and his mouth already tasting of the venom that coated his fangs. The elf was blinking at him, guileless, Resigned, helpless. And he was starving.

With one hand, he reached up and grabbed a handful of her curls, then pulled her head to the side. She let out a gasp, but didn’t resist the motion. Then, with the other hand, he felt at her neck, sensing the faintly glowing arteries and muscles with his fingers while he used the weight of his body to keep her pinned to the wall.

He moved in closer, close enough to smell the musk of her unwashed hair and the vodka on her breath. Then, carefully, he sank his fangs in. The blood gushed out almost immediately – a torrent of hot, metallic, typically sweet elven blood, and the very first taste sent a rush of elation and satisfaction into his mind.

He could taste the alcohol in it, ever so faintly. It was one of a hundred notes that told him a million things about her. He could taste the essence that made her who she was, the nutrients she was lacking, even the aftermath of the day’s stress. They all lingered in her blood, tweaking the taste like hints of aroma in fine wine.

She started to giggle, her mind obviously reeling from the alcohol and sedative venom of his bite. It was a delightful sound, especially after denying himself this satisfaction for more than a week. He savored the pulsing flow of her blood, gushing to the rhythm of her heart, offering itself to him. It practically begged him to savor every last drop, and accept this fascinating elf’s very life like the gift it was meant to be.

Minutes passed as he drank greedily from her. He swallowed every drop of the hot liquid, even as she started to sweat against him, and her heart began to beat faster. He ignored the signs he was going too far in favor of the urges that told him he wasn't going far enough. She was just… just food, wasn’t she? He hadn’t decided he wanted her as a thrall, and she wasn’t of his kind, so that made her… That made her disposable, right?

She whined, softly. A labored effort, sickly and weak. Just enough to tip the balance of the scales in his mind, and get him to stop. He’d had enough.

He pulled away from her, pressing his hand to the two punctures to staunch her bleeding as he intoned “leòn dùinte,” charging the spell with his will to prevent more bleeding. He felt a slight drain on his reserves of ragira, vast though they were after finally feeding on someone.

The blood stopped flowing past his fingers, leaving a woman who would probably survive what he’d done to her, if only narrowly. She had a dull, dreamy grin on her face, just as content to be spared as she would have been to die in this alley.

He hadn’t realized how beautiful she was before. He’d noticed how striking she was, of course, so tall, and vibrant. But… looking at her now, too weak to stand without a wall to brace her, too stunned to even realize what she’d given him, and oblivious to how much more he might yet take? He saw beauty in her, too, as well as a world of potential.

“Thank you,” he whispered, leaning forward, and pressing his lips to hers. She didn’t reciprocate, didn’t kiss him back. But he couldn’t blame her for that, as far gone as she was.

Vincent broke the kiss as quickly as he’d started it. He looked at her again, her mouth now stained red with her own blood, then let her go, and began to walk away. She’d need to rest, needed to recover from this. And he’d know where to find her once she did.

He’d almost rounded the corner when he heard the crunch of glass underfoot behind him. He looked back, and saw her faintly glowing silhouette stagger a few paces towards him, then collapse. He smiled at the sight. If she was managing to walk a few paces despite all of that, she would be just fine, given some time.

She would recover. She would return to her life, and she’d see him again, soon. She was an aimless little elf, wandering through life, practically begging him to take her and put her on a different path. He allowed himself to think about it, now. He decided that she would make an excellent thrall. And in turn, he would be a terrific master.