Outside: close to dawn

[onceaviking]

It's been a long night.*

The sky is grey. A single star still shines above the horizon but soon the long rosy fingers of dawn will chase it from its place in the sky.

The grass is wet with dew.
When you look at the drops up close, they shimmer. Like fairy wings.

Eric Northman is fully outstretched on his belly, one long, cool finger gently stroking a wet blade of grass, making the dew drops tinkle. Like tiny, silver bells.

His fangs are down and there are smeared traces of blood around his mouth. His eyes are huge and dark and hazy.

The wind feels like silk against his cheeks and like fingers in his hair. Or maybe it's the other way around.
He's not sure.

But that's okay.

{ooc: someone has been drinking a little too much fairy blood, see the linked thread (*still ongoing, nsfw-potential). Let us assume that should ongoing thread involve nakedness at some point, someone has had the wherewithal to put his pants back on. Stoned vampire is stoned. Proceed with caution.}
{ETA: everything takes place after the thread with Sunshine. Eric will be inside the Bar shortly.}

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine is finding recovery to be annoyingly slow. Her circadian rhythm - never the most reliable thing anyway - still hasn't righted itself after she slept soundly for seven hours in the middle of her afternoon. For want of something to do, since normal sleep eluded her, she had gone on her usual dawn run an hour or so early this morning.

She would have to admit it isn't quite her usual run, though - acknowledging that she's not quite up to her usual speed, Rae had decided at first that a jog would be safer. But she was promptly reminded that the convalescent doesn't get to define what their body is up for, when her knee had decided all of a sudden not to hold her as she jogged around a fallen tree.

So there is a baker, mildly dinged and scratched, making a careful, walking circuit around the lake, in the pre-dawn grey.

[onceaviking]

There's a scent on the air.

A little blood, yes, but also something else ...

He closes his eyes. Focusing. Which is hard. So he opens his eyes again to stop the earth from moving.

Yeast.

It's yeast.

He can almost feel his mother's hands petting his cheek (even when he was a full grown man and growled at her when she did it), smelling of bread and beer and butter.

He moves to his hands and knees and looks around.

Everything glows. And shimmers.


But something is moving differently. Slowly.
He gets all the way to his feet in one swift movement.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae is well acquainted with the feeling of there being a vampire in her vicinity. The knowledge doesn't stop her, however, until Eric stands and is within her line of sight and in her way. That stops her in her tracks, standing on the lake-shore in the dimness.

He looks different from when she last saw him. Superficially different, though. The vampire is still very much recognizable as himself, even with shorter hair and more modern clothes.

"Someone'e out late," she remarks, neutrally, eyeing him. "What's wrong? Can't sleep?"

It's a common problem.

[onceaviking]

He takes a couple of steps towards her, his gait looser than normal, something she may or may not notice.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he says, "You smell nice." His voice is dreamy, soft and he is slurring his words a little. "It's rye, isn't it?"

Which probably wasn't what she was expecting.

His pupils are hugely dilated.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Yeah... it's rye." Her eyebrows rise at his tone more than his question. "If you want some of the loaves once they're done baking, you'll have to pay for them like anyone else."

Oh, she definitely notices the way he's moving. Still with the inhuman grace, but looser, less controlled. That, with his tone, and the dilated pupils... It would be an amusing effect, on someone less a predator. Rae can only imagine what he's been drinking.

"I do believe you're drunk, sucker."

[onceaviking]

And then he is standing right in front of her.

Swaying, just a little bit. "No, no, no," he says. "It doesn't work like that."
Then he laughs a little. "Sucker. Heh. That's funny. And I just might. Buy something. Do you put seeds on top?"

Leaning in a little. It is apparently an important question.

[sunbaked_baker]

Her look hardens as he invades her personal space, but she refuses to back up. She can feel the little folding knife in her pocket, warm against her thigh, the tiny hairs standing up on the back of her neck and along her arms.

"Yeah, I put seeds on top," she says, steadily, keeping confused incredulity out of her tone. "What's it to you?"

The corner of her mouth turns up slightly in irrational amusement as she realizes lines from a folk song have started filtering through her mind. It's an old one, a good kneading-song, of keeping a none-too-bright vampire talking til dawn. Already the half-light is not so dim as it was.

[onceaviking]

"My mother used to do that," he murmurs. "They'd pop in your mouth. She never burned them."
He looks down at her hands, the source of the scents of yeast and rye.

Then he looks back at her. There's a tiny drop of blood in the corner of his left eye.
It could be the bleeding brought about by the threat of the rising sun.
It could be a tear.

"I miss her," he says. "So much. She'd sing when she kneaded ..."
His voice trails off.

He reaches up and touches his own lips and fangs. His lips are numb. They still taste like the fairy.
Where did he go?

He turns and looks, quickly, almost losing his balance. The way the colours shift is a little disconcerting.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Kneading has a rhythm to it," Rae murmurs, watching him warily. "It lends itself to singing. I do that, too, sometimes."

To feel the soft dough under one's hands, the rising potential, and keep the steady, warm rhythm like a heartbeat, and take comfort in it; it is terribly human.

"What are you doing out so late, Eric? You're playing with fire." And oddly enough, that isn't her threatening him. It is just a simple statement; it's going to be dawn soon.

[runningred]

"Eric? You okay?" Jay steps close to him, a package tucked under his arm. "Did someone slip you a mickey or something?"

[onceaviking]

Eric looks up at Jay's voice.
His fangs are down, which they normally isn't when he's in public and there're faint traces of blood on his face.

His pupils are huge and the white in his eyes look bloodshot. Very bloodshot.

He blinks slowly.

Fairy blood is supposed to leave you energised but Fin is no common fairy, not in the least. And besides you gotta come down sometime.

He touches his own face. He can't feel his fingers on his skin.

"Who's Mickey? "
His tongue is weird too.

[runningred]

Jay sits down at Eric's side, a little protective of the drugged out vampire. He runs his thumb over the corner of Eric's lip, sniffing at the blood to see if he can pick up anything. " A mickey finn, a drug. Has someone drugged you, Eric?" He knows Eric has enemies in Milliways but surely none of them are mad enough to try something here.

[onceaviking]

Eric chuckles softly, closing his eyes. "... it's a fairy," he murmurs. "A pretty, pretty fairy."

He can feel the dawn outside, settling on top of him like a duvet.
Like death.

"With wings. Maybe he flitted away. Don't know where he is now. "

He sounds sad.

[runningred]

"And fairy blood makes you stoned?" Jay manages not to laugh but it's a near thing. "I'm gunna guess your fairy's gone his own way."

"It's getting late for you. Let me help you to your room, hey?"

[onceaviking]

Eric shakes his head. It might be to clear it, it might be a no.

"Where did she go? " He still sounds dazed but now a sense of unease is creeping into his voice.
She helped him.
Why?
Why would she do that?

Maybe it's a trick.

He looks back up at Jay. His eyes are wide and uneasy.

The fairy blood is fading. And so is it's protection against the day. Sunshine's gone too. She cannot keep the sun away from him either.
How did she do that?

[runningred]

"She who, Eric? I thought your fairy was a he?" Ha waves for a waiter rat to grab a bottle of true blood from the bat, hoping to get Eric to drink something clean. Like feeding water to a drunk human.

"Eric, look at me. You're inside and you're safe but I think you should rest. If you don't want to go to your room, that's okay."

[onceaviking]

"The girl. There was a girl ..."
His voice trails off as he touches his mouth again. His fangs. Then he runs his hands over his face.

When he looks at Jay again, there's blood on his hands and a smeared trail of blood beneath his nose. "It hurts," he says. Fairly clearly.

The sun must be up.

Maybe she brought it with her. Hidden in her pocket among bits of yeast and dustings of flour. Hiding it.

He shakes his head again.

The floor's nice. Very solid.

[sidhe_king]

Not more than a few inches away there lies a fairy, also on his belly, watching Eric. He's got his chin propped in his hands, and the focus of his attention is hard to break.

Sometimes he finds the vampire fascinating, really--which is why he's busily weaving a quite thick crown of dandelion heads. Real ones, even, the kind that won't disappear.

[onceaviking]

Eric smiles at the dew drops. Trying to caress them very carefully with his finger. Without breaking them.

They break so easily.

Like humans.

He doesn't seem to notice the fairy.

[sidhe_king]

The fairy is quite busy enough, steadily adding to the chain until it would sit on Eric's head without falling down too far. And he tosses it carelessly, landing it a little crooked, causing the dewdrops on all the dandelion heads to shake off.

"You should get inside, Eric," he singsongs.

[onceaviking]

A little while passes. Then Eric murmurs something in reply.
It's in Swedish, an old dialect not spoken anywhere anymore, but it sounds like a no.

He wants to stay. It's nice out here.

And he's fast. He'll just run when the day breaks. But not yet.

[sidhe_king]

"Inside, before the sun rises," he says, face serious but curious to see if the vampire will do as told.

Otherwise he will have a fair bit of explaining to do.

[onceaviking]

Eric turns over on his back, moving as if through water.

"No," he murmurs. "I don't take orders."

[sidhe_king]

"You also don't take sunburn well, from what I hear," he replies.

[onceaviking]

"Not when we drink from fairies," he mutters, his words slurred and slow.
"Your blood - 's differ'nt"