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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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Well that flood was some bullshit, and then someone botched a revenge beating, so that's two things checked off the bucket list.

[They're both agreeing to just not talk about it, right?]

[Ehhhh he's kind of giving up hope of protecting his secrets.]

A revenge beating of you? You've only been here for five minutes. Making friends already?

Yeah, well, some people seem to think it's unreasonable to start stabbing strangers when you think you've been abducted by potentially cannibalistic, homicidal sadists.

They're full of shit, but. I guess that's fine as long as they suck balls at throwing punches.

Ugh. Some people here start stabbing just because they're miscellaneously angry, or bored. You at least had a very good reason for your violence.

Thank you.

An inch to the left and she would've broken my nose but that's the worst of it. Lucky child me didn't feel comfortable carrying a knife and she jumped me straight out of the flood, or it would've been a different story.

Do you have any idea who this person was who set upon you?

Yeah.

I've been assured she thinks we're even now. Next person might not be so generous though, so she should probably consider herself even with the ship as a whole.

[Apparently it offends Rosita the most - besides that it happened at all - that she was bad at it.]

She could just get better at acts of violent revenge, I suppose? She'd hardly have a shortage of teachers.

That's what I hear.

Do you drink? Alcohol?

I can, though it's not the most enjoyable experience. Is this an invitation?

Yeah but not if you don't like it.

Is there an equivalent?

Blood. I can bring some with me - the Admiral provides, I don't have to go bothering the chickens.

Have you been shown the speakeasy?

I have.

I'd happily meet you there for that drink, if you don't mind my own choice of beverage.

I don't think I do. I've never hung out with a vampire before.

There's a first time for everything. Half an hour?

It's a date.

[And she will be there, indeed some days old bruising to mostly one side of her face, but otherwise apparently un-revenged.

She also already has a drink.]

Astarion arrives roughly on time, pauses a few paces away and offers a fluttering bow.

"A fine evening to you, dear lady. May I join you?"

She's never been bowed to before, not with anything approaching seriousness anyway; not that she would say this is, but also he's not drunk and guffawing and flirting, so. It counts.

She adds it to the list, raising her glass in a toast by way of reply and smiling, anyway.

"Please do. You found the place."

"Thank you."

He finds a glass to decant a bag of Barge-provided blood into - he's not an animal, after all - and then takes a seat next to her.

"So. What are your impressions of this redemptive voyage so far, darling?"

She knows the smell, even though she's only human; it's not strong though, not baked in the sun and congealed on rotting ribs, so she just takes a drink out of her own glass until the alcohol in it numbs her sinus passages at least for a moment.

"Not much changed: pretty bullshit," she comments, drily. "Got wardens running around that don't even know how to apologize offering counseling, and I don't know why putting us through puberty twice was a good idea."

She eyes him. "That wasn't teenage vampirism, was it?"

"It was early in my vampiric career, so to speak, but the lightly deranged behaviour on my part was due to having been buried alive for about a year," Astarion says briskly, and sips his blood. "To a given value of 'alive', obviously."

"I mean. That'll probably do it," she blinks, eyes widening slightly, but it doesn't quite reach horrified levels; just surprised, in more than one way.

But, despite the fact she asked: "We don't have to talk about it, but I do think it's relevant to ask: was it the drinking from humans thing that got you in trouble with him?"

"Ha! Yes, but not in the way you're thinking. It was my failure - rather, my refusal to bring home a human for him to drink that did it."

He's been keeping the finer details of his previous life fairly close to his chest, to this point, but...at this point, he's finding it hard to care. His very first flood was one that literally advertised some of his most closely held secrets. Why bother?

She studies him over the rim of her glass, sipping at it while she thinks. She has pretty good gut instincts about people, she usually knows when someone is being dishonest with her or holding back, and she hasn't gotten that impression with him specifically.

But none of the people she's used to can survive a year being buried alive, either, so what else is different? Still.

"Why refuse?" she asks, since he gave more details himself.