Early Mornings Bite [VampyPants]

Since watching the trio of wizards scurry back to the castle, the professor carrying Dacians latest snack and the little redhead lighting the way, the rest of the night had been uneventful. Dacian had wandered back into the forest, sated a little by his small meal and not particularly in the mood to linger at the forest's edge waiting to find more easy prey.

The only mildly intriguing thing he had seen that night had been the large bat-winged emaciated horse creatures. From the look of them, they might have been Thestrals. Keeping mostly o the human world, Dacian saw little of the odder magical creatures, and Thestrals were certainly scarce in cities. Apparently you could only see them if you'd seen death. Dacian had smiled t himself at that. He'd seen more than enough death in his time. Hell - he'd caused most of it.

The creatures had been quite friendly, and rather curious of a lone man walking into their midst at night. After introducing himself to a few, he'd left them to their business and wandered aimlessly some more.

Now dawn was coming and he could feel it like a weight on his chest. Being an old vampire, Dacian had enough energy to stay up during the daylight hours, but by no means could he tolerate the light of the sun. He enjoyed his sleep, however, and though he might not need it, he was heading back to his temporary shelter that he had made inside a cave a ways into the forest. His route took him toward the edge of the forest to begin with, and it was as he was walking through a grove of particularly strangely shaped trees that he heard the shuffling noises of a biped toward the edge of the trees.

His interest piqued, Dacian stepped over the multitude of winding roots that were trying their best to trip him and brought the source of the noise into his sights. A woman. His heart gave a little tinge of joy, and his stomach felt a similar way. Sleep could wait, he thought to himself as he circled round and began to walk toward the blond. What exactly she was doing in the forest in the pre-dawn hours was not what he was interested in. What her jugular had to offer did.

Dacian had began to stalk between the trees, keeping to the deepest shadows when he realised that he might learn something from this. Logically, she was from the castle and from her age, she certainly wasn't a student. Perhaps she might know something about that male professor who had been in the forest earlier. Had he identified the marks on the boys neck? Were rumours of 'vampire' already circulating?

He'd already eaten that night, so the vampire justified that he could draw this hunt out and try and divulge some information from the lady before she supplied him with the blood that he so desperately wanted. That boy had tainted his system, he needed some good old fashioned woman to wash it down with.

Stepping out onto what could be called a path between the trees, Dacian put on his most amiable expression, put his hands non-threateningly into the deep pockets of his leather duster and began to walk nonchalantly in the direction of the woman. When he was close, he looked up as if spotting her for the first time and changed his direction to intercept hers. "Hello there?" He called ahead, the lilt of his tone a little confused as if he wasn't expecting to find a person up ahead.

Without a light spell to herald his approach, he had to come in range of hers before he came into full view. He tried not to lurch to quickly into the radius of light, but there was only so much subtle you could be in what would be near blackness for the witch. "Oh, so you are a somebody. I thought I was imagining things." He glanced over her, offering a half smile. His eyes lingered on the wood she carried - and surreptitiously took a good look at a few other interesting features - and he gave a passing thought to the state of her sanity. Gathering pieces of wood in the dark? Well, nobody said the magic folk weren't eccentric to the point of completely bizarre.

It never filed to amaze him how many people were quite unperturbed at a lone man approaching them out of nowhere. If she had any sense, she'd at least scream and try to run. Although, he supposed as she thrust the light at his chest, witches could fend for them selves to a degree. The vampire recoiled from the light suddenly burning his retinas, biting back a hiss and covering it with a wince. "Peachy. Could you lower that, please?" He gestured at his eyes which were now held shut.

With such sensitive eyes, the light spell was as good as throwing him from a light-proof room to outside on a sunny day for what good it would do to his eyes. Red spots were dancing across his eyelids now, and he imagined they might linger for a while. Wonderful. At least his ears and nose were in prefect working order. Her heart was only slightly elevated, and from the smell of her she hadn't completed many morning rituals yet. Not that she smelt awful, but skipping one shower allowed him to get a good reading on her base smell and quite often, a persons natural scent was far preferable to anything artificial. Apparently this woman fell into that category. Her scent was delicate and pleasing on the senses. That would be a bonus when it came to dessert.

But first, he should try and find out what had happened with the boy earlier in the night. Were rumours circulating? Would he soon have a troop of wizards knocking on his proverbial door? He was generally good at subterfuge and deception, it came from having no guilty conscious to hinder the ease of your lies. Six centuries of practice didn't go amiss either. "So what exactly are you doing in the forest with an armful of wood before the sun's even up?" He asked with a sideways smile - he no longer had to consciously remember to be careful not to show his fangs - and rubbing his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand in an attempt to make the stinging stop. He was essentially blind until his eyes managed to recover.

He really hated magic.

Learning about wood? Dacian was glad he wasn't a prepubescent wizard and had to attend the school if the lessons were that dismal. He'd been home schooled back in his youth, and he didn't recall any of his lessons including chunks of wood. The reply placed her as a professor, though exactly what she taught that included wood was beyond Dacian's realm of experience.

She was becoming increasingly suspicious from her voice, and Dacian chuckled under his breath. It was easy enough to come up with a scenario that would explain his being here - wand-less - and alone, and he wondered how wizards weren't a dying race with the ease of which he could fox this one witch. "I've been in council with the Centaurs," He lied easily, he had enough knowledge of her world to formulate something believable, "Ministry business. Their terms of audience are strict. You must come alone, and wand-less." He shrugged apologetically. "I did not expect I would come across anybody so early in the day - I can imagine I must seem rather foolhardy traipsing the forest in the pre-dawn. Its dark enough in here at the day's zenith."

He rubbed his face with his hand and cracked his eyes open a little. The burning in his eyes flared a little, and he looked away to the side, trying to allow his eyes to adjust to the brightness. Perhaps he should have been a little more cautious. After all, the witch wasn't exactly a threat bu that wand could do some damage if she used it with malcontent. He couldn't afford to be blinded for long. It was doubtful he could blind himself permanently, but even a spell - no pun intended - of limited visibility could severely hinder his defences.

Dacian might have given up then. This interrogation was getting tedious. He should just bite her and be done with it. "Oh, its all rather boring. Its just some politics. We're trying to improve relations for exactly that reason. If the Centaurs refuse to contact us, we have to contact them." He didn't mention any specific division, as he wasn't exactly savvy with the structure of the Ministry and she might be trying to catch him out. Hopefully the mention of politics would deter her fro asking any more impossible questions. No woman worth her salt bothered herself with politics. Then again, women were doing a lot of unpredictable things in the last century.

"Do not worry, I've followed protocol. The school already knows of my presence here. I was just heading to the castle to report in before I leave for London." It wasn't as if she's remember much of what he'd said once she'd been bitten and given a dose of disorientating sedative from his saliva. The trick was to not make a such a big impression that she might recall snippets of the conversation when she regained her senses.

If this went on much longer he was going to throw subtlety to the wind and bite her. He should practise interrogation techniques more himself, though his version involves more sharp objects. Torture tended to get faster and accurate results than polite conversation, but that defied the point in playing this convoluted game of fishing for rumours.