RP:Tempting the Shadows

Part of the Rest in Pieces: Vailkrin! Arc

Summary: As a lover's quarrel breaks out between Larewen and Shishi, the assassin's curse taunts the dormant corruption within the necromancer, coaxing that darker side of her being back into life and leaving Larewen to struggle with two opposing forces within her own mind.

The Hanging Corpse

Larewen sat at the bar, one of the few times that she ever did. It was a clear sign, and Steadmen knew, that the elf was not quite herself. At least, not the heartless creature that she often portrayed herself as. Given that fact, the barkeep provided her with the stronger stuff, the particular liquor that Daermon preferred: strong enough to knock a vampire on its rear, even with the fact they were dead. She was well into only the gods knew how many drinks, and her eyes had taken on that glassiness that was common among the drunk--odd given given the fact she was just recently engaged again. Her glass was in her right hand, and a lit cigarette in her left. The glass was downed with a single gulp and nudged toward Steadmen for a refill whilst she dragged on the smoke.

Shishi comes up into the Tavern from the cellar. The noise of something being knocked over in the dark announces his arrival a few moments before he emerges onto the scene. Shadowy curse be damned, this vampire still can't truly see in the dark. Once inside the main area of The Corpse the assassin plays it cool, avoiding eye contact with any that look his way questioning the sound he had caused. He heads to the bar while telling Steadman about the ‘secret’ entrance, “You know there's a way in down there?” The vampire receives a blank, one-eyed state while he drops onto a stool beside Green. “What’s she drinking? Give me that, eh?”

Steadmen arched a brow at Blue and poured him a glass of the vile liquid before sliding it toward him. A moment later, he topped Larewen's glass and the elf reached for it, downed it, and followed it with the smoke. She seemed, for the moment at least, oblivious to Shishi's presence beside her. Blood stained her lips, though it had largely been wiped away. It had an exceptionally rich, almost holy smell. The glass was pushed toward Steadmen again, and filled. To the male, the barkeep said, "It's been there awhile." He then craned his neck toward Larewen before lowering his voice. He was careful, speaking at a level that to the living would be inaudible. "She's been drinking awhile again, muttering about that elf. Y'know, she ain't really been herself for awhile."

Shishi turns his head to pretend to look back towards the direction he came in from, angling an ear towards the cycloptic barman while he tattles on Larewen. “Awhile, eh?” The assassin responds while still peering out towards the back of the room. He blinks and his irises flicker briefly to some shade between blue and red, ushering that ominous pulse through the shadows that Steadman and most Vailkrin residents are used to witnessing by now. It is though oceanic blue eyes that he finally looks back towards the barkeep through, narrowed slightly as Shishi doesn't say another word to him. The glass in front of him is studied, plucked up and a small sip is taken out of it. The vampire wrinkles his nose and sets the vessel back down on the countertop over a ring shaped water stain that's been there for years.

The barkeep nodded, casting a one-eyed gaze in the necromancer's direction. He had considered cutting her off, but then her ire wasn't exactly worth it. She wasn't that far gone, anyway. "Yes, awhile. That doesn't matter. Your woman," he stopped briefly, as if afraid she might have tuned in, but alas she was mostly catatonic it seemed. "You guys have had your thing for a long time, yeah? Pretty sure you guys were married for a while before, when things were different. When -she- was different. Y'know why she's come back to you, don't ya? A lot goes on here, and I may have only one eye, but I see things. She might love you, with some part of her heart, but she doesn't think with it. She's with you, 'cause she knows she can control you. She can't control that elf, and that's why she longs for him. He's come in here a time or two since they ended their thing, and you can see it. Clear as day." He was careful to keep his tone to hardly more than a breath, to a level that Larewen would not overhear.

Shishi noticeably glares back at Steadman while he gives his opinion on what that one eye of his sees. These two men have known each other for some time by now, but Blue still seems annoyed at the unsolicited advice. There is no half-change in his eyes this time around as that accursed shade of glowing crimson illuminates the vampire’s face and the countertop in front of him in the dimly lit tavern. The bartender’s own shadow stops moving on the floor, no longer matching its caster’s movements. “What do you think, cyclops?” The Blue Demon isn't working as hard to keep his voice down as Steadman, though Lar doesn't seem to be listening in anyway, “Can I be controlled?” The answer is ‘yes’. The barkeep has seen the owner of this establishment do so on at least a pair of occasions, but does he have the gaul to give that answer to the murderer’s face?

Steadmen lifted his head as the necromancer downed another drink and lit a new cigarette, her mismatched eyes focused on the wall beyond him. "Yep. You let her control you. She has you under her thumb, and don't you see she knows it? Why else would she come back to you, when things get rough? You are safety. Don't think she won't leave you, if she finds someone more favorable. Someone else, like that elf, or the avian, or even another. She spends a lot of time here." Apparently, Steadmen did have the gall, and given that Larewen was beyond three sheets to the wind, he wasn't overly bothered telling Shishi about it. He grabbed Shishi's drink, having noticed the assassin's distaste, and when Larewen requested another, promptly poured it into her cup. The necromancer didn't seem to notice. If he was aware of the shift of shadows, he didn't show it. "Your Lady is mercurial. She changes what she desires on a whim, and I wouldn't put it past her to put you to the back burner, if something else caught her fancy."

Shishi fumes as he listens to both Steadman and the voices of the shade his family’s curse has breathed life into. His left fist clenches and nails draw blood at the inside of his palm. He only just barely gives the one eyed man the time to finish before all of their rapport goes out the window. The idle threats from the assassin of removing that other eye and the barkeep adding unordered drinks to his tab are no more as the vampire finally snaps and mutters out a concession to the darkness, “Fine. Bring him down.” That single eye probably widens as the rug (in the form of his own shadow) is pulled out from under Steadman, sending him toppling forward to hit his face against the edge of the counter. He goes down and Shishi stands simultaneously. The Blue Demon hoists himself up over the bar and sits atop it with his legs hanging down on the employee side, “Is that what you think?” He leans over the edge a bit more, staring straight down, “Do you also think I'm above killing everything else on the face of the planet so that there's nothing left to ‘-fancy-’?” Maybe Lar will notice all of this. “Tell me one more thing you -know- about -my- wife! Please!” The shadows pooling around the fallen barman are held at bay for the time being though that hold seems less and less stable by the second.

The sound of Steadmen's face smacking against the counter as he is toppled to the ground by the sudden jerking of the rug by shadows does seem to draw the elf from her drunken stupor, and only then does she seem to acknowledge Shishi's presence. Her brow furrows as mismatched eyes drunkenly swivel between the vampire seated upon the counter now and the fallen barkeep. "Shi?" she asked, though the vowel of his name was held a bit longer, thanks to her inebriation. Steadmen grumbled, lifting a hand to his now bleeding nose to wipe the red fluid away. To the assassin, he simply shook his head. "Be the fool, if that's what you want." A moment later, he pushed himself to his feet and wandered away, busying himself with cleaning empty glasses. He did what he could, and that was enough. Larewen, on the other hand, appeared thoroughly confused as she took a final drag on her cigarette.

Shishi grits his teeth. One can almost hear the fangs scraping against each other as he stares down the Steadman while he moves away and gets in his last little comment. “Shut up.” he spits the words out, though they aren't meant for the barman. Instead they are directed towards the hundreds of little voices that his curse allows only him to hear. With a useless sigh he swings his legs back around over the countertop and drops his feet down onto the ground beside the stool he had previously vacated. He stands at his full height in front of the elf, idly waving a hand to dispel some of the smoke wafting around her. “Aye?” he asks simply in response to her own inquisitive rendition of half of his name. Crimson eyes fixed on the necromancer save for a glance or two at the bloodied bartender.

Larewen crushed her smoke into an ashtray, blinking at her once-husband, now fiance, whom she still referred to as her husband with a slight weight upon the corner of her lips. "Your eyes," she stated, plainly enough. She was oblivious to the exchange between barkeep and assassin, even as she moved to bring another drink to her lips. Between the stench of smoke and booze, it was clear that she wasn't quite there. Steadmen, on the other hand, made a point of not acknowledging the glances; he had said his part, meant to aid the assassin in his plight, and had been struck down for it. If the assassin wanted to have the necromancer crush him again and again, that was his problem.

Shishi puffs out his cheeks and alerts his gaze to the side in a futile effort to hide that crimson glow from her view. There is little hope of him dismissing that accursed shade of red from his irises at the moment given that he is still ‘upset’ with Steadman. The Blue Demon moves his left hand up towards his face, but quickly alters its trajectory when Larewen raises her glass. His palm moves over the top of it, fingers closing down on it from all sides as he plucks it from her hand, spilling some off the alcohol probably if she puts up even a bit of a fight. “He gave you my drink by accident.” He explains before downing what's left in a single gulp. The assassin pokes at his top right fang with the tip of his tongue while setting the glass down on the counter upside-down and tilting his head towards the exit, “Ready to go?”

Larewen blinks at Shishi, her expression swiftly becoming vexed as he downs her drink, regardless of whether or not it was his. "No," she said, and there was a slight coldness to the slurred word. Her mismatched stare moved past him to the barkeep. "Steadmen, another," she called, only to be pointedly ignored. For good reason, considering her husband had, more or less, by proxy, sucker punched the poor guy. A low growl echoed in her throat and she reached for another cigarette before attempting to flag down one of the barmaids instead.

Shishi seems to be the reason Larewen is having trouble getting served now. While she had been oblivious to the exchange between Blue and Steadman, the staff had not. Regular or not, Cabal or not, when was the last time someone assaulted the cyclops? Even more so, when was the last time someone did that and wasn't promptly thrown or knocked out? The lack of outrage might be a testament to the current vacancy of Vailkrin, but that is a conversation for another day. In the meantime the barmaids aren't even coming close to the epicenter of living shadow and by proxy the elf that is sitting next to him. “Might have some trouble getting another one.” Blue says flatly to the necromancer.

Larewen grunted her distaste for the situation, still clueless as to why she was now being refused service. Having missed the exchange, she rose to her feet, stumbled a moment, and then took a step toward the door. "To Kelay then, or Frostmaw," she said, more to herself than Shishi. A handful of coins were drawn from a pocket of her... pants, actually. She was dressed extremely casually, compared to usual. "Not that they're gonna have what I want." The elf seemed equally oblivious to Shishi's vexed tone, and the shifting of shadows around them. As an after though, she leaned back to grab her cigarette case and pocketed it.

Shishi reflexively reaches out and drops a hand onto Green’s shoulder when she stumbles forward. Shadows slither up from the ground to coil around the assassin's legs individually, constricting slightly while they continue to whisper things similar to what Steadman had said to him earlier. He flinches slightly at one thing or another that those dark entities silently say to him and quickly moves his free hand to Larewen’s other shoulder, holding her at arm's length as he blinks crimson eyes slightly downward at her, “What the hell are you doing?”

Larewen stared up at Shishi, exhaling slowly. Her breath stunk of alcohol, which was to be expected. The elf's balance wavered and she adjusted her weight to keep from falling over where she stood. Bewilderment briefly washed over her features, perhaps as a result of surprise by the fact that Shishi had not only stopped her departure, but questioned her intent. Had he done that before? If he had, when? She couldn't recall. "I'm going to get a drink elsewhere, since I've apparently peeved Steadmen."

Shishi again tests the sharpness of that top right fang with his tongue, seeming to sneer slightly as he does so. “That crumby eye you got even work?” he asks before taking one hand off of her shoulder and waving it to indicate Steadman, “You see ‘em bleeding? I just did that. They don't want to come near -me- to serve you.” He shakes his head and returns that hand to the side of her shoulder. “Where -are- you, Lar?”

Larewen narrowed both her seeing eye and the blind, augmented one at Shishi's words, and at his tone, before looking once more to Steadmen. Her nostrils flared and she picked up the smell of his blood before her attention returned to Shishi. Part of her wanted to ask why, but that desire was lost when his query was posed - she wasn't sober enough to maintain more than one train of thought. Assuming his query to be literal, she swept her gaze over the tavern and replied with, "The Hanging Corpse, in Vailkrin. For now." She raised her hand then, the pale, naked fingers of her left hand--save for the engagement ring--encircling his with the intent to pull it away from her shoulder. Her balance wavered again. "What's wrong with you?"

Shishi wrinkles his nose when she gives an answer that he one hundred percent would have given if asked the same question. Her hand moving over his only causes his once light grip to tighten. “What's wrong with me?” He fires back a more literal response of his own after regurgitating the question, “I have to kill people regularly to keep from going absolutely insane.” and continuing, “I just knocked the cyclops on his ass because he's positive the woman who is supposed to be my wife is about to leave me and you're too drunk out of your skill to have even noticed him talking about you three get away from you!” He leaves out the part about being separated from the twins again, though that is clearly eating at him as well. Oh and those shadows threatening to break his legs don't help either. Larewen glanced toward Steadmen once more, but the barkeep was wisely not meeting her gaze. He had other customers to busy himself with, and he wasn't about to get offer himself up for more bloodshed. Not with those two, anyway. When the necromancer's gaze returned to Shishi, she stared at him blankly. "The only person I'd even consider leaving you for wouldn't have me, the way I am," she replied, her inebriation barring any filter. She was talking about Emrith, clearly. "Unless you have someone else in mind." If she as aware of the shadows coiling around his legs, she wasn't reacting to them. She released his hand and moved to take an unsteady step past him.

Shishi blinks while that glow from his irises seems to solidify into a lighter than air crimson mist that wafts upward from the corners of his eyes. The change comes with another pulse through the shade, this one moving further out from the Tavern than the previous one. He shakes his head. “Lar…” is all he has in response to what she's just said. The whispers from the dark turn into shouts now and drown out most of The Blue Demon’s own thoughts. When she finally manages to slip past him he finds himself unable to move his legs do to those black things twisted around them. “Let go.” is growled into the air at those accursed things.

Larewen either wasn't aware of how cruel her words were, or didn't care. It was hard to tell, and the elf did not glance back as she stumbled out of the establishment. She didn't make it much further than that though, and instead fell back to lean against the wall of the tavern as she looked up and down the street. No, if she attempted to travel to Kelay or Frostmaw in this state, the necromancer knew she might not make it before fatigue took her. She wasn't even sure she could navigate the forest, to her own House--and it harbored memories of her former lover that, given the aid of one's dear friend, alcohol, were a little to raw for her. The elf reached into her pocket for another smoke.

Shishi remains restricted by the curse-animated darkness inside The Corpse otherwise he likely would be giving chase. However Larewen is eventually visited by two ‘familiar’ faces not long after she has settled against the wall. First is an unmistakable black bat that flutters annoyingly across her face two or three times before finding a spot on a nearby windowsill to cling to. The second is a smaller, winged version of that emissary of darkness that had surrendered the pieces of the ring she now wears on her finger. The embodiment of the curse perches atop the roof of the Corpse like a child's doodle of a gargoyle. The same screeching, grating voice from the other night calls down to her, “Moving faaster than weee thought, Green.”

Larewen stiffened slightly, nearly choking as she inhaled the smoke from her cigarette when the creature called down to her. She could not see it, with it being above her and on the roof of the establishment, but the voice, she recognized. Her eyes closed for a moment, and after a sputtering cough, she exhaled slowly. When she spoke, her voice lacked warmth altogether; it was as if something had changed in the necromancer the moment she'd fell back drunkenly against the tavern's wall. "I might go mad too, if I had to deal with your voice inside my head constantly," she hissed. "You want this. You want me to leave him. You want us both to suffer." Her lips quirked upward at the corners and she took another drag from the cigarette. "But don't you see that I'm key to that? If I leave the picture, he will eventually find another and move on. He always has, always will. What then? You want control, and you want me gone. But you cannot have them both, I don't think."

Shishi can’t quite make out the screeching side of the conversation going on outside over the mess of noise in his mind telling him that Larewen is already long gone. Outside the shadows laugh, which is not a pleasant sound coming from that dark construct, “Keeey? Heehee… it's true. You've given us our best bouts of control over Blue, but only after yoooou’ve left. As for theee others they found him more than heee found them. Red gave us what we neeeeeded, something you couldn't, and then weee saw to her leeeaving. White tried to suppress us and now she is nowhere to be found. Weee told you Blue is a cursed man. It is impossible for him to stay happy for long. We will find control again eventually with or without you.”

A surge of dark magic flooded the road, some of it even slipping into the establishment where Shishi would likely feel it: the necromancer had not gone far, and her rage was saturating the very air around her as the voice twisted one of the many knives that were still buried deeply into the elf. Aarika had given Shishi the twins, a joy that Larewen had forsaken when she took her marriage vows all those years ago. With her out of the picture, Shishi had obtained many of the things that Larewen had once yearned for. The suffering was twofold for the pair, for just as the necromancer had begun to find some semblance of happiness again, a promise for a future, for happiness, Shishi had, in her mind anyway, waltzed back into her life and just as he was still drawn to her, she still, in the deepest, darkest parts of her heart, belonged to him. Green was not just a color that identified her garb, but her soul as well, for envy plagued her. It wasn't fair that her husband had not been hers and only hers; it was not fair that he be gifted children, and her son, though adopted, was dead. The curse's words would have been sobering, if she hadn't consumed so much of that vile liquor. Around her, the air grew colder. She couldn't find words for the rage that enveloped her and thus the necromancer's body began to quiver. Her cigarette fell from her hand as she pushed off the wall and stepped closer to the center of the road before turning to aim mismatched eyes upward at the shadow creature. Hatred contorted her features."Damn you both!" she growled finally. An inky blackness began to spiderweb across her pale features, reminiscent of the corruption that had once tainted her blood. It was, in fact, still there though it had been dampened and washed from her flesh by a stranger. "Bring him out here." It was not a request, but a demand.

Shishi is finally released inside the tavern and is soon to find his way out onto the main road, not taking the top secret exit in the cellar, obviously. Before that though the dark creature on the roof widens its void of a grin when the comment referencing Orange and Yellow elicits the response they wanted. The shadows are experts at pushing buttons it would seem as this is one of the only ways for them to be given control over the curse’s hosts. “Yesss.” The winged tangle of darkness unravels itself and essentially pours itself from the roof down onto the ground where the thread of shade takes shape again, standing before Larewen, “If he comes out and kills you now… how long do you think he'll be ours for? Until he dies maybe?” Those accursed shadows recognize that corruption, but given that they're given life by The Blue Demon and not The Yellow Beast, they are unable to emulate it in the slightest. Shishi comes barging out with the knowledge that Green is still here, his eyes still secreting that crimson mist that rises slowly into the eternal night air.

Larewen glowered at the shadows as they leaped down from the roof to stand before her, the darkness creeping along her entire body until blackened veins were visible on every bit of exposed flesh. Yes, the curse had elicited a response that Larewen was not aware she was capable of: they had triggered something deep within the elf, drawing upon the affliction that had been laid to rest and remained dormant within her. A wicked grin split her lips, which had grown pale once more as the alcohol had washed away the blood. With the corruption once more brought to life, sobriety found its hold on her. When Shishi emerged from the Hanging Corpse, it would be to see her and the shadows in conversation. "Do you have enough control to guide his hand to kill me now?" she asked, the words a lilting, silvery sound. Magic swirled around her, its unholy nature nearly tangible in the midnight air. Mismatched eyes moved past the shadow to fix on Shishi, and in their depths was the very hunger that had driven her to nearly kill him before, only this time it was not born of a desire for power, but of a bitter hatred for the man she had once loved, and still did, even now. The elf maneuvered around the cursed shadow so that she was nearer the assassin when she spoke. "I should leave you, Shishi. I should never have come back to you, when I first did. I should have stayed gone. Every chance I have had to find my own happiness, you have cast aside," she said, the words cold. A few more steps would close the distance, so that the unease of her magic would mingle even more strongly with the mist that overtook him. She was close enough now that he could easily make an attempt on her life. A pale hand rose upward to press to his cheek with a gentle, loving touch even as her features belied hatred. "I never remarried, and my romances were always fleeting. None could ever replace you, none could ever have my hand. But you... You replaced me not once, but twice. You created with another, the very thing you robbed me of. You granted me eternity, and damned me to misery, while I have always waited, year after year." She held up her left hand, the moonlight glinting off the emerald in her ring. "This is the fifth time I have worn this ring. The fifth time I have promised myself to you. The fifth time I have cast aside my life, for you. It has taken me far too many years to give my heart to another, to truly love a man other than you. How many more times will you damn me to the same pain over and over again? How many others will you give colors and take into your marriage bed? I gave you my life, and in return, you gave me pain!"

Shishi is inundated with the dark screams for Larewen’s life as soon as he steps out the door. The shadows do not answer the elf, because the answer is soon to be clear that they aren't currently in control enough to even get the assassin to harm her let alone kill her. He is stung by her first words to him that she should have never returned to his side. He has excuses for most of what she accuses him of next, but they are just that; excuses (like ‘I didn't even know I could have a kid!’), and so he keeps them to himself. He's told her multiple times in the past how little his other marriages had meant to him when compared with her and that too is left unsaid here. Although the shadows occupying his mind can hear it ‘There have been no others.’ as he dismisses Red and White. Once she is finished the vampire shakes his head, trails of crimson vapor swaying with the motion as they mingle with the corrupted energy flowing from the necromancer. “I am a cursed monster. I bring pain. If you can't leave then maybe you're cursed too and we'll do this to each other countless times.” He seeks out eye contact with the one eye she can't really see out of, “I don't want any more Colors or anyone else, but I can't honestly promise something other than pain. You married a Demon and doomed yourself.”

Larewen would have had something to say for each of those excuses, had he voiced them. Her grin curled upward into a sneer that bore the points of her eyeteeth. The fingers of her hand curled inward, nails pressing against his flesh as he spoke. "If I am cursed, it is because of you," she hissed. There was nothing more for her to say to the shadows, for she had known the answer before Shishi has appeared from within the establishment. For now, and perhaps forever, the elf was confident that there was little to no chance that Shishi would kill her; they were too closely bound to one another. "Clearly, I was a fool, and monster you may be, but I do not, nor doubt I ever will, fear you. This cruel tragedy that we play out over and over, is only that. If I wished it, if my heart were truly as black as some have claimed, I could break you. You know it, and your curse knows it. I could tear you apart emotionally, utterly destroy you, and you would still stand at my side; you would still be wrapped around my finger." Her left hand lowered to her side as her right shifted, pale fingers sliding backward to curl into his hair. With a tug, she meant to draw him against herself, simultaneously rising to the balls of her feet as her head dipped toward him. Her lips brushed over the flesh of his lobe, her breath caressing his skin, as she whispered into his ear, "Show me this monster you say you are, for only puppets allow another to pull their strings. If we are cursed to repeat our pain, our miseries, then let us embrace it."

Shishi bares his fangs slightly at the truths she lays down about his inability to kill her. While she pulls him in the dark thread that makes it the embodiment of the curse that Larewen had been speaking to evaporates into a thick black cloud that envelops the pair of vampires in a typhoon of living darkness. More and more shade is pulled in from around Vailkrin leaving parts of the undead city unnaturally illuminated. She whispers to him and he exhales unnecessarily, his body relaxing slightly from the tense state it has been in while contending with the curse. He is unsure of whether she is referring to her pulling his strings, or the curse itself puppeting him, or both, but he is about to demonstrate that neither is the case at the moment. The swirling darkness of The City of Eternal Night collapses on Blue and Green. It ignores the necromancer, flowing over her and her dark magic like water while clinging to the curse’s host. Slowly it takes shape and solid form, separating their bodies from one another as a layer of living black armor covers the assassin. It seems to almost be made of muscle the way it moves, but it is cold and hard to the touch like metal. He reaches out, his face and head still exposed, the only things not covered by the shade armor, and places his hand beneath her chin, fingers moving around her neck. The strength in those shadow covered fingers can be felt as he effortlessly lifts the elf off her feet by her neck. He leans in, bringing her up to his height, and shoots his crimson stare though her mismatched one, “This is The Demon, Lar. No one is pulling my strings.”

Larewen watched as the city's shadows were drawn to the assassin, watched as they sluiced over his body and then hardened into armor. When his fingers wrapped around her throat, her sneer once more formed that wicked grin. Breath was not a necessity, and when his grip tightened, she was grateful for that. The elf's eyes closed as he lifted her by her neck, and though her hands both moved to his wrist, she made no attempt to pry his fingers loose. When her eyes opened, they fixed upon his crimson ones. Something swirled within their depths, undoubtedly brought on by the reawakened corruption that surged through her body: a demented sort of joy. She was vulnerable, and that knowledge did not escape her. "Prove it," she croaked, for his grip prevented the proper amount of air necessary to articulate her voice. "Embrace what you are... and master it. Control it, rather than fight it..." She inhaled, the draw of breath a hoarse wheeze. "Give me reason... not to think you weak."

Shishi twitches slightly. Despite the level of control he has on display at the moment he is inwardly combating nearly every shred of shadow in Vailkrin telling him to squeeze until her head pops off. There is a thin line of demarcation between proving he is in control and being well out of control apparently. If she lives he is in control. If she dies, well, he's not. The strength provided by the layer if darkness surrounding his body is on display again as he lifts her slightly higher and his grip readjusts so that there is room for him to do what he does next. His head tilts forward, moving past her arm and hand that grip his armored wrist, and fangs pierce violently and easily into the flesh of her neck. Blood spurts upon initial contact and his grip tightens as if he is trying to squeeze more blood out of the vampire he turned all those years ago. The feeding isn't gentle as he'll bite down multiple times so that the traditional puncture wound will be unrecognizable once he is finished with her.

Larewen had not anticipated the response she received. Her fingers tightened around the shadow-armor, a strangled, startled cry loosing itself from her throat as his fangs tore into the soft flesh of her throat. Then he bit down a second, third, forth time, effectively mauling the flesh and ruining the side of her neck. Blood darkened by the corruption within her oozed from the wound, blackening her pale flesh and staining the green of her shirt. The necromancer had asked for it, and it was a side of her once-husband that she had never before seen. Her magic gathered tightly around the pair, tendrils of unholy energy seeking to curl themselves around the assassin and separate him from the elf, only as he continued to ravage her throat, draining the stolen blood, their grip would weaken. Whilst she was struggling with those energies, with her attempt to force him away from her, the corruption would begin to recede, the ebon webs fading from her skin. Though she was not under threat of death, at least not from the draining, she began to weaken and her hands fell from his wrist to hang limply at her sides. Her breath, having been freed somewhat by the shifting of his hand, came in ragged gasps that only served to help aid the flow of blood out of her body.

Shishi doesn't stop at the first sound of pain as that would kind of defeat the purpose of all this. Wouldn't it? Instead he continues draining that borrowed blood from his sireling even while her magic seeks to pry him away, probably doing a bit more harm than good as he needs to bite down once more after being forced back. Once he’s done and fangs are pulled from flesh the cursed assassin sets Larewen back down on her feet, though he might need to provide some support given her condition. His tongue pokes out of the side of his mouth, lapping up blood at the edge of his lips. A few calm blinks of his eyes see those irises returning to their normal shade of oceanic blue and Vailkrin as a whole returning to normal as the shade that makes up the Blue Demon’s armor is sent violently snapping back to its rightful spots around the undead city. Once again he'll seek eye contact, more defiance than concern on display for his five-time fiance he's nearly ripped the throat off of.

Larewen felt her feet touch ground once more, though her vision had blurred. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and her left hand rose upward to her throat. She could feel what little bit of blood that remained oozing out of the hole in her neck and the mere touch of the raw, torn flesh sent a shock of pain through her. She stumbled a step or two backward, head swimming and lips parting to say something. Whatever it was, it was never vocalized. Pulling her hand away, her mismatched eyes lowered to the dark blood and a moment later, the elf's legs gave out and she crumbled toward the roadway.

Shishi nods, “Aye. Aye…” to whatever words she can't get out. He is certainly anticipating the collapse and so he is ready with outstretched arms to scoop Larewen up when she starts to go down. The scene is reminiscent of the aftermath of The Corruption Incident several months back in which an unconscious and (magically drained) Green was carried back to The Thorne Estate by the assassin. This time there is no extra company and the draining was all Blue’s doing. Everything else is exactly the same except also the main road is intact. Once they're home Shishi will dress the wound as best a trained killer can and surely real medical attention will eventually be summoned depending on how much more The Blue Demon has to prove.