Astarion at least manages better in the grand scheme of things: not just in pain and its measurement, but in the swifter reflexes that have him— while Ellis reels under briefly singing pain— rushing to his feet in some guarded, snapping response, daggers already outstretched.
Splintered wood still clinging to dark clothes.
"I'm a blood mage," he snaps at the trio, a hurried bluff. One of them bleeding so profusely that he'll no doubt slump over dead if he isn't ferried to a healer in short order, the other skinnier one still gone gaunt with dogged wariness. It's the last that looks the most reluctant to turn tail and leave. The strongest, the tallest, the most dangerous of the pack.
"Come any closer, and it'll be a demon you're contending with."
The knifepoint in his hand glints. Astarion tilts it backwards, closer to his own wrist, red eyes glinting in low light.
It takes an excruciatingly long moment before they give up. Before the thinnest whispers something, and the wounded gurgles something, and with a resentful snarl that wicked band departs, slinking back into darkness.
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Splintered wood still clinging to dark clothes.
"I'm a blood mage," he snaps at the trio, a hurried bluff. One of them bleeding so profusely that he'll no doubt slump over dead if he isn't ferried to a healer in short order, the other skinnier one still gone gaunt with dogged wariness. It's the last that looks the most reluctant to turn tail and leave. The strongest, the tallest, the most dangerous of the pack.
"Come any closer, and it'll be a demon you're contending with."
The knifepoint in his hand glints. Astarion tilts it backwards, closer to his own wrist, red eyes glinting in low light.
It takes an excruciatingly long moment before they give up. Before the thinnest whispers something, and the wounded gurgles something, and with a resentful snarl that wicked band departs, slinking back into darkness.