#song sedlak | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

epchapman89 · 5 years

Text

The 2019 Sprudge Guide To Buying Tea Online

Here it is! The centerpiece of tea week, our sprawling 2019 Tea Week Buying Guide. Please note that this is in no way a “definitive” or “authoritative” guide—rather, it represents a range of tea experiences we’ve had over the last several months of research and experiences for Tea Week. There’s so, so much tea online to drink and learn about, so please consider this but a humble snapshot of the stuff we tried and liked.

No fewer than 17 brands are featured in the pages below, from tea purveyors hailing from Lodz, Poland to Columbus, Ohio to Napa, California to Yunnan, China and all points between. In this guide you’ll find something for everyone, from the thirsty newb to the gushu cultist—teas to open the soul and stagger the mind.

Let’s not waste anymore time on the intro when there’s lovely tea to explore. Dig in and get steeping!

Getting Started

Blend No. 67: Meadow. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Smith Tea

I’m a big fan of what they’ve built over the last decade at Smith Teamaker, whose founder, Portland tea entrepreneur Steven Smith, was formerly the mind behind Stash Tea and Tazo (both were acquired by multinationals in the 1990s). Smith passed away in 2015, leaving behind a philanthropic legacy that still resonates today throughout Oregon and beyond. Today Smith Tea is overseen by a team led by Ravi Kroesen, sourcing a kaleidoscopic range of teas and herbal blends from every corner of the globe. There is truly something for everyone at Smith Tea, from a British Brunch blend to chai and herbal tisanes, plus smart selections of teas sourced from India, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Accessibility is the watchword here, and that translates into a very fun tea bar experience at Smith’s two Portland locations—well worth the visit, whether you’re just getting into tea or consider yourself a lifer.

Recommended tea: Smith’s Golden Tippy Assam continues the philanthropic legacy of its founder, with each purchase benefitting Mercy Corps and the SERP program (read more here). It is also, happily, an absolutely delicious expression of this style of northern Indian Assam, with dark cereal malt notes that evoke a good porter beer.

Garden Direct Huo Shan Yellow. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Rishi Tea

Many coffee bars across the United States are partnered with Rishi Tea of Milwaukee, WI, and the brand has been a fixture at coffee trade shows across the country over the last decade. This is a beneficial alliance: Rishi’s selection is vast, encyclopedic even—everything from pre-wrapped sachets to caffeine-free blends to immaculately sourced small lots of tea through their excellent Garden Direct program, a tea geek’s paradise of small lots and specific styles. They’re even selling a few aged pu’er cakes, for eminently reasonable prices, in case that’s where you want to dive in. Truly there is something for everyone at Rishi.

Recommended tea: This 2009 vintage Shou Pu’er from Mannong Village, Yunnan had us steeping and steeping more at Sprudge HQ. There is nothing quite so comfortable as lightly aged shou—a term referring to the wet-piling process that produces big, round, dark flavor notes and a silken mouthfeel. Tea aging is a thing; the different grades and styles and villages of pu’er are also very much a thing. This is a deep rabbit hole to explore and this is a tasty place to start.

Organic Early Spring Snow Sprout. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kilogram Tea

Translating tea into a coffee context comes second nature to Chicago’s Kilogram Tea, founded by longtime Intelligentsia Coffee tea sourcer Doug Palas, and operated out of Intelli’s Fulton Street HQ. Palas is a career tea professional and educator, and I’ve learned a ton from him over the years approaching tea from a coffee context (the regularly updated Kilogram blog offers exemplary tea writing from a trade perspective). Though the range of teas from Kilogram might feel intimidating for newbies—there are seasonal teas, blends for iced teas, teas from Vietnam and China and Japan and much more—Palas hits his spots, walking a fine line between accessibility and inquisitiveness. Particularly notable is Kilogram’s dedication to organic teas, with multiple organic offerings across the product line including White Peony, Iron Goddess of Mercy, and many more.

Recommended tea: Kilogram’s sourcing of Winter Li Shan—lightly oxidized rolled oolong from Nantou, Taiwan—is eminently sessionable, honey sweet and delicious, a tea you want to keep drinking and drinking across multiple steeps. I also strongly recommend ordering Kilogram teas while at any of the Inteillgentsia coffee bars nationwide; having a house tea brand gives these coffee bars envious access to education and quality product, and you can really taste it across the bar as a customer. A shot of espresso and a pot of oolong for me please, thanks.

Korean Black Balhyocha displayed in shibodashi by Andrzej Bero. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Spirit Tea

Spirit Tea of Chicago are making waves right now in the American tea market, with their aggressive pursuit of wholesale cafe accounts and educational focus on tea sourcing and relationship building. In this way, they are the latest iteration of work long pursued by brands like Rishi and Smith: the translation of tea culture into a coffee setting. The end result hopefully sparks new interest in tea among those who work around coffee professionally, or rely on coffee and coffee bars as a daily facet of life. Spirit, with its regular tours and event concepts, represents a kind of millennial take on the trope. This is accessible, cool tea for young people ready to go a step beyond tea bags (or move past bubbles).

Recommended tea: Korean Black Balhyocha is like the perfect dessert tea, with big, sweet, comforting flavors of peanut dust, Hershey’s bar, and sticky rice. This tea grows semi-feral and is sourced from a third generation tea growing family in Hwagae. I can taste it so clearly just writing these words—an extraordinarily piquant and memorable tea.

Wild Korean Persimmon Leaf tisane. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Tea Dealers

Tea Dealers of New York City also carry a range of products spanning China, India, Japan, and Korea, including a few high-end Japanese tea bags for those on the front end of the learning curve. We were especially impressed across multiple visits by their tea bar in the East Village (29B)—see more in our coverage of the New York City tea bar scene—and by their wide range of traditional Korean tisanes in flavors like quince, mulberry, and roasted soybean.

Recommended tea: Actually, we’ll suggest one of the tisanes, the wild Korean persimmon leaf (감잎차대 gamnip-cha) grown on an organic farm in the Jiri mountains. This tisane is highly prized for its allergy relief properties—perfect for the coming spring—and tastes beautifully like a lightly oxidative tea. Read more about this and other tisanes in our tisane spotlight feature.

Going Deeper

Cypress Smoked Wild Leaf. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Song Tea

This is the company that started my journey exploring the world of progressive tea, founded by Peter Luong and based in San Francisco. Song is a brand of dualities—they are in the same breath both deeply curated and eminently accessible; rather intimidating yet with a wonderful sort of learner’s permit to the world of quality tea; focused yet hard to encompass in a single sentence or signifier; able to speak fluently to the coffee world yet still reverent for what makes tea special; a company renowned for their tea but on another level altogether when it comes to ceramics, many imported through direct commissions with emerging ceramicists in Taiwan. Every chance to speak with Peter Luong is a chance to learn more, which is why we’ve given him room to talk more about Song’s sourcing efforts elsewhere in our Tea Week collection. Visiting Song Tea has become something of a requirement for me when in San Francisco and I encourage you to do so—Luong’s take on tea service (gong fu cha), like the brand itself, is both unfussy and revelatory, waiting to spark new obsessions for anyone who walks in the door. I’m living proof.

Recommended tea: As a tea drinker I am forever chasing the tang of a good roasted tieguanyin, and Song’s version of the style—”Red Water Tieguanyin” from Lishan, Taiwan—has become a bar setter for me in terms of quality and deliciousness. That said, it is not a typical Tieguanyin: it comes from Taiwan, not Anxi on the mainland, where the cultivar first came to fame; it is significantly oxidative in what I understand to be a more traditional style on the mainland, where today light, bright TGY’s are more to trend; and it lives for long, hot, repeated steeps, with that moreish apple-skin tang only emerging after three or four rounds. I am obsessed with this tea and it has become to me a kind of definitional totem of all I had been missing in the years before tea became a regular part of my life. There’s simply nothing quite like it.

Wenshan Bao Zhong displayed in tea scoop by Ondrej Sedlak. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Tillerman Tea

Based out of Napa, California, founder and lifelong tea nerd David Campbell runs an online shop dedicated to the many oolong teas of Taiwan. Tillerman’s focus is narrow—around 20 teas in the collection at any given tea—but that scope allows for exemplary representation and high-quality teas from across the island. Tillerman ships direct from Napa, meaning orders placed in the United States show up in around two days. There’s not a lot of hype around these guys but the tea just glows.

Recommended tea: Wenshan Bao Zhong, a dark green, dry style of tea that is just barely oxidized, walking the line between what most tea drinkers recognize as “green tea” and classic oolong. This tea just goes and goes, with layered complexity through a dozen steeps or more.

Chacoal Roasted Dong Ding displayed on small plate by The Great Escape Studio. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Floating Leaves

Seattle’s Floating Leaves focuses on nothing but the teas of Taiwan, with a range of offerings both fresh (2018 Fragrant Dong Ding, harvested just months ago) to vintage (like this Johnson Administration-era Beipu). From inside the company’s working offices/tea tasting room in Ballard, Floating Leaves are shipping out some of the most beautiful charcoal roasted oolong teas I’ve ever tasted, with a focus on offerings from individual roast masters and tiny prized plots. Founder Shiuwen Tai has also got the market cornered on video education, commissioning original films at tea origin and hosting regular online tea brewing meet-ups.

Recommended tea: Floating Leaves are increasingly my go-to tea for serving guests—these are light-switch “oh shit” blow-your-mind teas, complex and fragrant and so very obviously at a different level of quality and intentionality than the teas most people grow up drinking in America. If I had to pick one it would be the Charcoal Dong Ding, roasted by Master Zhang in Nantou County, Taiwan. This tea is just, wow, so full of life and character, with the most wonderful clarity and energy—a masterclass on the subtle art of roasting in the tea world, to which coffee lovers can certainly relate and revel in.

Wudong Mountain Dancong displayed on . Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

The Tea PL

There is a huge scene for tea in Eastern Europe, and many talented emerging ceramicists and intriguing tea brands are based there. Having dipped my toe in just a bit, I’ve come away really impressed by the offerings from Wojciech Wozniak and the team at The Tea PL, based in Lodz. Their webshop is kind of an entry point to the rabbit hole of aged tea, including a number of Hong Kong and Taiwan stored Yunnan teas from the 80s and 90s, but also a number of exemplarily sourced teas from Eastern China and Taiwan. I highly recommend checking out this brand’s monthly tea club as a way to get started and learn more about their approach. The Tea PL kind of reminds me of a wine shop that has all the good shit—you might not be familiar with it all, but shopping there you know you’re in good hands.

Recommended tea: This endlessly giving craveable, village-and-variety-specific Wudong Mountain Dancong. The village (Li Zai Ping) and the bush variety (Mi Lan Xiang) are both highly revered and sought after. In the cup, served gong fu cha style, there is plush sexy fruit for days, oranges and mangoes and yellow plums. This tea also puts me in a really lovely headspace (not dissimilar from a good sativa, frankly) and is ideal for sharing with a friend or partner and letting the conversation flow.

Down The Rabbit Hole

2018 Poundcake blend. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

White 2 Tea

If Hanon or Patta or any of the other big international streetwear brands were a tea company, they would be White 2 Tea. Their approach to branding and marketing feels utterly of the moment, from flash sales and Instagram deals to eye-catching packaging and artist collaborations, all of it shot through with a sense of humor and playfulness that feels utterly refreshing not just in tea, but for beverage culture in general. (For more, see our coverage on tea branding.) This is the brand whose tea cake wraps I would most like to wear on a hoodie, and the end products—the result of careful blending managed at origin, in China—have been some of the most delicious stuff I’ve sampled in the last six months of research.

February 2019 White2Tea Club cake. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Recommended tea: It sounds like a cop-out but White2Tea’s tea club is some of the most fun I’ve had receiving tea through mail. Every month it’s a different look: a set of a half-dozen samples of yancharock teas; a special edition tea cake pressed with naughty Santa Claus art for Christmas; exclusives, rarities, and discounts galore. For $30 a month it’s a steal—I wish coffee had an equivalent grab bag subscription service with as much personality, variation, and playfulness as this one. But if you have to order something straight up right now, and don’t want to trust the club just yet, start with a matching set of Flapjacks Raw and Flapjacks Ripe—travel-ready mini pucks of packed pu’er, each weighing exactly eight grams, ready to toss in your bag on the go.

Bitterleaf

Bitterleaf offers a couple of things that help them stand out in the market: a smart, collab-heavy approach to tea cake packaging design; a deep bench of ceramics and teawares at a range of price points; and a consumer-friendly “Tea Miles” program that functions kind of like frequent flier miles at your favorite airline. The more you spend (and refer), the more points you get in the program, redeemable across Bitterleaf’s range of products. With 60+ pu’er offerings alone—from Myanmar grown tea cubes to mandarins stuffed with shou—there is something for everyone, and to boggle every mind.

Recommended tea: Year of the Dog 2018 is a raw—unprocessed—pu’er from the Yiwu village in Yunnan. “Raw” teas from this part of China are really like their whole own product category—I have heard them described alternately as “rocket fuel,” “the crack cocaine of tea,” “the stuff of life,” and “the only thing I drink” by various people over the last few months. It’s not for everyone, and your mileage may vary, but for those wanting to dip their toe, this offering from Bitterleaf is a really consumer-friendly place to start. Not too astringent, not too meth-y, not too much like you need to see a therapist after sessioning, but just enough of these things to let you know that yes, you are drinking young raw pu’er and yes, it is going to fuck you up in a hopefully interesting way.

2018 “Prescription Only” Raw Pu’er. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kuura

Really stunning design and teas to match out of Melbourne’s Kuura, fusing a kind of techno-futurist Blade Runner design scheme with detached commercial Instagram irony via Flinders Lane. The focus here is mostly Yunnan teas, packaged in eye-catching original teacake designs and paired with some super smart kit—think a stunning all-black faceted gaiwan, or this brutal looking industrial tea knife. Offerings from Kuura cycle quite often (this is a good sign) so keep your eyes peeled for new drops, and definitely follow them on Instagram.

Recommended tea:I have been very happily drinking my way through Kuura’s 2011 “Lolly Water,” an aged white tea from Fujian. As an everyday drinker it’s stunning, with heaps of energy and this burnt wood, palo santo thing on the nose that makes you want to keep brewing.

Forgotten Nebula. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Crimson Lotus

Husband and wife team Glen Bowers and Dawa Lamu work together as Crimson Lotus Tea, a brand with one foot in the Pacific Northwest and the other firmly planted in Lamu’s home province of Yunnan, China. Here the focus is on Yunnan teas and nothing but, though please don’t confuse that for a limited selection—Crimson Lotus offer a stunning array of village specific teas from across the region, exemplifying every cup profile and production style, paired with an assortment of expertly sourced teawares and tea tools. Their website is a deep resource of knowledge on the teas and culture of Yunnan, best perused over multiple steeps of shou, then sheng, then more shou (or whatever order you prefer).

Recommended tea: Where do I even start? Shou processed pu’er is treated with a lot of intentionality and respect by Crimson Lotus, and so you might check out their “That’s No Moon” 2015 (designed to look like the Death Star!) or a nice entry-level cake like “Simple Shou” (at a great starter price).

2009 Tieluohan in small tea pot by Crimson Lotus. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Wuyi Origin

Cindy Chen’s Wuyi Origin in Wuyishan, China offers a very unique proposition for tea drinkers: the opportunity to order tea direct from the producer. Chen’s focus is on yancha, or “rock tea,” a style of oxidized oolong named for the cliffs and mountainsides from which it is harvested. She and her husband Zhou Chen are multi-generational tea farmers, now wholesaling their tea worldwide thanks to the magic of global commerce, specifically the China Post, whose 2011 agreement with the USPS helped revolutionize how tea gets from China to the United States.

Recommended tea: Wuyi Origin offer a range of yancha, including both aged and new harvest, in sought after styles including Rougui (“Cinnamon”), Shui Xian (“Water Immortal”), and Qi Lan (“Strange Orchid”). I’ve been happily drinking a 2009 aged Tieluohan, a heavily roasted tea with big bold flavors of cherry syrup and herbs. Think medicinal in a good way.

Another Planet

Almost teacake. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Liquid Proust

I caution to go too deep here—this is for true heads only, and represents the very deep end of where the new generation of tea culture in America may someday lead, fueled by unprecedented access across a vast ocean and the immediacy of Instagram. Go follow @liquidproust and check out his website if you want to get involved. Have patience and you will be rewarded. I’ve said too much already, lest this blow up and I get shut out of his next aged oolong drop.

Recommended tea: Start with a sampler—his Winter 2018 set is still available as of press time—then follow along on IG for limited edition releases.

Ogura Gyokuro displayed in gongdaobei by Masanobu Ando. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kettl

Japanese tea gets kind of looked down upon by the gushu geeks and oolong owls, for reasons I’m not totally sure I understand—some kind of bias against steamed tea, maybe, or lack of access to the really good stuff. Kettl, friends, is undoubtedly the really good stuff, a direct source operation with offices in Fukuoka and Brooklyn, focused on the very highest quality Japanese tea available in the United States. Kettl buys direct and ships from Japan in eye-catching packaging, offering an array of truly stunning (and rightly expensive) gyokuro, sencha, matcha, and hōjicha. Kettl’s list of partners should help put the brand in context: from Jean-Georges to Gjusta, Momofuku to Mission Chinese, Konbi to The French Laundry to Sushi Noz, there may be no more high profile emerging tea brand in America right now than Kettl.

Kin Hōjicha by Kettl x Ryuouen. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Recommended tea: All recommendations are personal, and for a brand like Kettl that means truly drilling down to what you like, and what you use tea for in your life. For some that’s matcha; others are chasing higher and higher grades of gyokuro. For me, I love—and I mean love—the roasty toasty feather-light range of hōjicha teas carried by Kettle, especially this Kin Hōjicha, sourced in partnership with famed Kyōto tea purveyors Ryuouen. These teas are low on caffeine, big on umami, and perfect with dessert or after the end of a long multi-tea session. Very strongly recommended.

“Dragon Ball” tea caddy. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Yunnan Sourcing

An almost impossibly vast world of Yunnan teas, delivered to your door—the beautiful, the divine, the stuff that makes you feel like you’re riding shotgun with Wayne Brady. Yunnan Sourcing is Yunnan tea at its psychotropic excess, plus so, so much more from across China and Taiwan, alongside an endless scroll of teawares and gear. This website probably has 1000+ SKUs. You could drink nothing but Yunnan Sourcing tea for the rest of your life and still not touch bottom. They are perhaps a metaphor for tea itself—unknowably deep, never-ending, a lifelong series of clicks and more clicks and boxes upon boxes at your front door, never conquered or fully understood.

Recommended tea: Within the vastness, a personal discovery—this lovely collection of “Dragon Ball” style teas, hand-rolled by the founder of Yunnan Sourcing’s in-laws. I keep one of these in my bag at all times in case tea is called for in a less-than-prepared situation, and I love drinking something with that personal connection to the family behind the brand.

Jordan Michelman (@suitcasewine) is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge.

Editor: Scott Norton.

Photos by Zachary Carlsen and Anthony Jordan III for Sprudge Media Network.

Sprudge Tea Week is presented by Breville USA.

The post The 2019 Sprudge Guide To Buying Tea Online appeared first on Sprudge.

seen 1st on http://sprudge.com

0 notes

mrwilliamcharley · 5 years

Text

The 2019 Sprudge Guide To Buying Tea Online

Let’s not waste anymore time on the intro when there’s lovely tea to explore. Dig in and get steeping!

Getting Started

Blend No. 67: Meadow. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Smith Tea

Garden Direct Huo Shan Yellow. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Rishi Tea

Organic Early Spring Snow Sprout. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kilogram Tea

Korean Black Balhyocha displayed in shibodashi by Andrzej Bero. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Spirit Tea

Wild Korean Persimmon Leaf tisane. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Tea Dealers

Going Deeper

Cypress Smoked Wild Leaf. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Song Tea

Wenshan Bao Zhong displayed in tea scoop by Ondrej Sedlak. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Tillerman Tea

Chacoal Roasted Dong Ding displayed on small plate by The Great Escape Studio. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Floating Leaves

Wudong Mountain Dancong displayed on . Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

The Tea PL

Down The Rabbit Hole

2018 Poundcake blend. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

White 2 Tea

February 2019 White2Tea Club cake. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Bitterleaf

2018 “Prescription Only” Raw Pu’er. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kuura

Forgotten Nebula. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Crimson Lotus

2009 Tieluohan in small tea pot by Crimson Lotus. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Wuyi Origin

Another Planet

Almost teacake. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Liquid Proust

Recommended tea: Start with a sampler—his Winter 2018 set is still available as of press time—then follow along on IG for limited edition releases.

Ogura Gyokuro displayed in gongdaobei by Masanobu Ando. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Kettl

Kin Hōjicha by Kettl x Ryuouen. Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

“Dragon Ball” tea caddy. Photo by Zachary Carlsen.

Yunnan Sourcing

Jordan Michelman (@suitcasewine) is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge.

Editor: Scott Norton.

Photos by Zachary Carlsen and Anthony Jordan III for Sprudge Media Network.

Sprudge Tea Week is presented by Breville USA.

The post The 2019 Sprudge Guide To Buying Tea Online appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge https://ift.tt/2EzcM2C

0 notes

galpalaven · 4 years

Text

midnight snack

Song really ought to know better by now than to let monsters too close - but with the new parasite in her brain, the thrill of danger is somehow much more tantalizing than it ever had been.

Turns out a vampire's bite is far more exciting than even the worst erotic novels she'd read in her youth had made it out to be.

Baldur’s Gate 3, Astarion/OC, 3600+ words

Also on AO3!

She’d been trying to sleep when the feeling had snuck up on her. It was a creeping sensation, a crawling tickle of unease skittering up her spine. Something was off. Something was—

Astarion.

Her mind flashes to the strange way he’d reacted to the boar they’d found earlier in the day, and suddenly it all makes sense. A vampire, he’d said, so sure of himself.

Her ears pick up the slightest sound of movement somewhere nearby, and she decides to take a chance.

“...Are you serious right now?”

Song hears a sharp intake of breath somewhere very close to her head and, despite the anxious feeling in her gut, the sound of it makes her lips twitch. Catching a vampire off guard isn’t something that one would think would be this easy, but apparently there are a few things she doesn’t know about vampires. The sound of shuffling fabric makes her stir, turning to look over her shoulder to reveal what she had already expected.

Astarion blinks down at her from where he’d been hunched over her sleeping body, shock clear on his handsome face.

“...shit,” is all he says.

It’s absurd enough that it makes her laugh, rolling over fully onto her back as she reaches up and rubs at her eyes. Maybe it’s just exhaustion making her delirious, and that’s why she’s not in any hurry to kill him—or maybe it’s just that her sense of self-preservation has never been as good as it should be. Her mothers would be disappointed in her if they could see her now, but that’s beside the point.

In any case, though she’s lying perfectly still, he doesn’t try to overpower her or kill her even now.

“How long have you been awake?”

His voice makes her look up at him again, peeking between her fingers to find him still knelt beside the fire, watching her warily. She chuckles again, shrugging as she continues to rub sleep from her eyes.

“Not long,” she sighs, dropping her hands and stretching them over her head. She groans softly as a few of her vertebra pop with the movement. “I just had a… a feeling.”

She relaxes back into her sleeping roll, looking up at him with a half amused grin on her lips. “A feeling that turns out to be correct—you were really going to kill me in my sleep, huh.”

It’s not a question.

He panics, rising fully to his feet and backing away from her.

“No, no—I wasn’t. I swear, I just—I—I wasn’t going to hurt you! I just needed—well, blood.”

The firelight doesn’t reach his face from this angle, and all she can see are the reflections of firelight catching his eyes, making them glow ominously in the dark. Here, she can see him for what he really is: a vampire. A slave to sanguine hunger.

Perhaps it would frighten her more, had she not grown up surrounded by devils.

“I’m only surprised I didn’t catch on sooner,” she says, turning her gaze to the starry sky above. “We even found that boar you’d snacked on earlier.”

He makes a disgruntled sound in his throat. “It’s not what you think. I’m not some monster,” he says, and she can hear the desperation in his voice. “I feed on animals. Boar, deer, kobolds—anything I can get.”

“And what, pray tell, forced your hand tonight?” she asks, tilting her head. She rolls onto her side, propping her head up and draping her arm over her hip teasingly—something about this situation is almost funny and she can’t resist. “What made me such a delicious, irresistible temptation?”

His lips twitch, and he lets out a little huff of air that might be the beginning of a laugh. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

She smirks, but says nothing, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I’m… too slow right now to hunt properly. Too weak.”

“And, what, you thought I was the easiest target?” she asks flatly.

He makes a face. “Well... you are the only one here without magic.”

“That’s not true. Lae’zel doesn’t have magic either.”

Astarion shoots her a look like she’s stupid. “Yes, but have you seen Lae’zel? Plus, I’ve never drank from a githyanki. What if her blood is poison?”

Song snorts, shaking her head. She’s not really mad, for whatever reason—maybe it’s the connection they share from the tadpoles in their brains—but she does think it’s funny to watch him squirm. It’s a small pleasure in the midst of the hell they’re currently wading through, and she’s glad to keep enjoying the small things so long as her mind is still her own.

“How do you know my blood isn’t poison?” she asks, watching him frown. “How do you know I don’t take a potion every night to make my blood poison to all things that stalk the night?”

He blinks.

“...do you do that?”

She laughs, a little too loudly because Gale stirs in his sleep, mumbling something about five more minutes where he lays a few feet away. She sits up in response, sighing as she pops a few more of her vertebra in her neck.

“Shall we take a little walk?”

Astarion just blinks at her again, before he tilts his head, shaking it a few times. “Hold on, you seem far too calm about this whole thing, considering your view on people who have been turned into monsters against their will.”

Song just snorts at him, cocking her hip. “Are you really trying to tell me that becoming a vampire is somehow even remotely similar to turning into a giant, slimy tentacle creature with crazy mind-control powers?”

He smirks, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “Isn’t it?”

She blinks, still smiling a little. “No. No, it’s not.”

“How is it different?”

“I don’t know about you,” she says, backing up a few steps, “but I’m quite vain. I like the way I look. Becoming a vampire, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t make you ugly as sin at the end of it.”

She turns to walk towards the forest, walking into the trees a bit before she looks back over her shoulder. He’s still standing where she left him, looking rather wary at this whole conversation. There was a certain thrill to this whole charade that she loved - a dance to talking her way through things that she loved. Right now, in this moment, she has him wrapped around her little finger, his full attention on her.

She doesn’t need any mind-control abilities to get people to do exactly as she wants—she’s a master of this art.

“Am I wrong?” she asks at length, shooting him a cheeky grin. “If I am, you must have been more beautiful than any creature on this plane or any other before you got bit.”

That makes him grin, and he finally starts to follow after her, though still at a bit of a distance. “Resorting to blatant flattery now, are you?”

She just shrugs, turning to watch where she’s going. His gaze burns like hot iron against her back as she walks ahead of him, leading them deeper into the forest. “I’m only stating facts.”

“Mm. I’m sure.”

Eventually, she’s satisfied that they’re far enough away that they won’t be overheard by accident, and she turns back to him, leaning against the trunk of a big oak tree. He stops, a good ten feet away, watching her. She can see his eyes glinting in the low light as he shifts on his feet warily.

“I’m waiting for the punchline,” he says, tilting his head. “You’re going to kill me now, aren’t you?”

“You seemed to be of the opinion that I wouldn’t stand a chance trying to kill you the other day,” she says flatly, reaching up to fiddle with one of the rings on her fingers. She keeps her eyes on her hand as she says, “I don’t know what you’re so scared of.”

“That was before I’d seen you fight the way I’ve been seeing you fight. You took on a whole horde of goblins like it was nothing—I’ve never seen someone so sharp with a bow,” he says, but he does take one hesitant step closer. “What’s your angle here? Why did you want to get me alone?”

“So dramatic,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. She rests her head against the tree behind her, smirking as she focuses on the stars visible through the canopy above. A tiny, new voice in the back of her mind tries to coax her out of this, but it’s easy to shrug it off. “I’m trying to offer you a solution.”

He snorts. “I suppose shoving a stake through my ribs could be seen by some as a solution.”

...is he serious?

She looks back over at him, dumbfounded that he’s actually this stupid, blinking owlishly at her in the dark. She shakes her head a little and says, slowly, “No, idiot. I’m offering you a solution.”

To emphasize her point, Song reaches up and loosens the neck of her shirt even more, pulling the collar open to reveal her throat. She tilts her head to the side and gestures vaguely at her exposed neck to really drive the point home.

His jaw goes slack, his brows draw together on his forehead. It makes her want to laugh for some reason, but all she can do is smirk and meet his gaze confidently in the low light of the night. In another life she might have thought better of this, but with the goddamn worm in her brain, each heartbeat is one moment closer to becoming something—grotesque and monstrous. Truly, anything would be a better fate than to become a hideous, writing mass of tentacles with mind-control powers.

Plus, if nothing else, he did seem to be very lethargic. If any of them wanted to survive this, they’d need each other. Anything she can do to make sure her party is in the best condition it can be, she will do.

“What’s the catch?” he asks finally, taking another, more confident step towards her. The way he moves reminds her of a big cat ready to pounce—like he’s stalking up on her through the undergrowth. His eyes catch the light in a way that even elf eyes don’t quite manage normally, glinting dangerously in the moonlight.

There’s a thrill in her stomach as he closes the distance between them, until she’s once again faced with their height difference. She watches him drag his gaze up and down the length of her, eyes darting around her features and lingering on her throat like he’s trying to decide where, precisely, he wants to bite first. Her prey instinct kicks in somewhere deep in her gut at the look in his eye, making her heart pound in her chest, but it’s not an unpleasant sensation. Heat coils in her gut instead of fear, a primal sense of anticipation coursing across her skin that makes her want to push in closer, to feel those sharp teeth against her flesh.

“There’s no catch,” she breathes, and his eyes flick to hers at the raspiness of her voice.

“There must be a catch,” he murmurs, voice low and smooth, matching the molten garnet of his eyes. “Pretty creatures like yourself don’t just offer themselves up to be devoured—not without wanting something in return.”

The word devoured nearly pulls a sound from her throat, and she bites at her lower lip as she shrugs a little, trying to keep some semblance of control over her body.

“All I want in return is you to be strong and to fight by my side until we solve our little dilemma. We have a better chance of success if you’re at your best—if that means you need blood, you can have it.”

She tilts her chin again, baring her throat and smiling a little as his hand comes up to delicately brush the thin skin there. “Take what you need.”

He smiles a little, eyes on his hand as it trails downward, slipping just under the edge of her shirt collar. “Aren’t you worried I’ll just take it all?”

Song’s answering scoff is bitter, and she looks away at the forest as she says, “I feel like being drained by a vampire is a much less painful way to go than being turned into a mind flayer, so… no, I’m not worried.”

He hums, chuckling a little. “Of course. I can be as gentle as you like.”

Their gazes lock. His eyes dart back and forth between hers, considering, looking for any sign that she’s going to change her mind.

“Dig in.”

He smiles, letting out a short little laugh with that low, smooth voice of his. “Don’t mind if I do,” he murmurs, and her eyes flutter shut as he turns his attention to the pale, thin skin on her neck.

The hand that had been slipping under her shirt slides up the side of her neck, fingers slipping through the short hair at her nape. His other hand comes up to hold the other side of her neck, tilting her head until she’s at the optimal position for him to feed comfortably. His grip is cool, hands strong as iron under their downright gentle touch. For a moment, as his breath washes over her skin, tickling her collarbone, nose skimming just beneath her jawline, she thinks it feels like a lover’s embrace.

And then he strikes.

It’s like a shard of ice plunging into her neck—a sharp pain that fades into a strange, almost numb warmth. There’s a tugging sensation, and she can feel the vibrations as he makes a quiet noise of pleasure into her flesh. The way his mouth moves against her neck has her breath quickening, catching in her throat as he sucks at her throat.

She doesn’t realize she’s reaching for him until she feels him sigh into her neck, and then she becomes aware that her hands are clutching at his waist, pulling him closer. His tongue laves over the wound in her neck and she squirms in his grasp, nails digging into his shirt as he bends his knee, sliding his thigh between her legs to steady her against the tree.

The unexpected pressure does pull a sound from her throat this time, and her own voice is muffled to her ears as she gasps, a quiet little, “Ah, gods—” that the wind carries away into the night.

He hums against her in response, and she feels him redouble his efforts against her neck, pressing his whole body up against her as he drinks—and that’s when she starts to feel it.

She’s going to faint.

“Astarion,” she tries, but her voice is too quiet, and he doesn’t seem to hear.

The first twinge of panic pricks at the edges of her consciousness. She tries to move and his hands tighten on her neck.

“Astarion, that’s enough—I’m dizzy,” Song gasps, tapping desperately at his sides. For a heartstopping moment, she thinks he’s not going to stop, that he’s really going to drain her, and she’s not sure what to feel facing her own mortality quite like this…

...but then he stops, breaking away with a shuttering gasp.

“Ah,” he says, and his voice is thick with the liquid still in his throat. He doesn’t move away, swallowing thickly, still bent with his face near her throat, touch turning back into something gentle and intimate. Song relaxes a little as he continues to nuzzle against her throat, dragging his lips against the skin there like he’s going to kiss her. “Of course. Forgive me, my dear, I was merely—caught up in the moment.”

The panic ebbs away with all the gentleness of a wave returning to the sea as Astarion presses a soft, languid kiss against the side of her neck, right over the bite.

It’s an apology, whispered in a language older than any of the languages either of them speak, and she laughs a little bit, reaching up to touch the hand he has still resting on the side of her neck. He still has her pinned to the tree, and she’s half glad for it, certain that the moment he steps away her knees will give way and she’ll collapse to forest floor at his feet.

“I had forgotten,” he says after another few moments, letting her return to herself in a way that’s strangely caring, coming from him, “how sweet blood given freely can be.”

Song smirks, tilting her head towards him, brushing her smile against his ear. “Have you had many willing young maidens at your mercy?”

That makes him laugh, snorting, burying his face in her shoulder. He seems happier than he had minutes earlier—lighter, more carefree. She can feel him shake his head, and then he finally pulls back, smirking with mirth.

“I can tell you with certainty I have never had anyone like you willingly surrendering their blood to me,” he says dryly. “In fact, I believe I’m normally trying to kill people like you.”

She scoffs. “That’s a bit rude, don’t you think? After everything I’ve done for you, you’d have still killed me?”

“You are truly incredible,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t get a read on you—one moment, you’re a thieving scoundrel with a silvertongue slick enough to talk a devil into selling his own soul, and the next…”

He trails off, shaking his head, but the look in his eyes is fond and full of affection.

“The next, I’m offering myself up to vampires like the heroine of a bad erotica novel?” she says, raising an eyebrow as she does, squeezing her thighs around his leg to remind him of the position they’re in.

“Precisely.”

She smooths her thumb across his knuckles as fatigue begins to set in from their encounter. She feels like she could sleep for a week if their situation allowed it.

“I’ll admit, it’s fun being an enigma.”

He laughs, and finally starts to untangle himself, moving away slowly to give her the chance to steady herself. She was right about her suspicion that her knees would be weak—without him supporting her, she finds herself leaning heavily against the oak at her back, darkness playing around the edges of her vision like smoke.

“Are you alright?”

She hums, closing her eyes against the rushing sensation in her ears. “Fine. Just a bit—woozy.”

“Shall I help you back to your bedroll?”

Song scoffs softly, opening her eyes again despite way the world seems to be tilting just so to find him with his arms outstretched, hands ready to catch her if she were to start falling. Though her pride is grumbling at her in the back of her mind, the concern on his face is sweet, and she reaches out, sliding her hands into his.

“It’s the least you could do,” she says, groaning a little as she pushes away from the tree and the forest floor seems to rear beneath her. “Next time, try not to take quite so much, hmm?”

He chuckles as she leans into him, burying her face in his ruffly shirt for a moment. “Is there going to be a next time?”

She shrugs as they start to make their way back to camp. “If you want. Maybe next time I’ll bring some bread to snack on afterwards.”

That makes him laugh again, and she smiles. She likes it when he laughs.

“You really are very wobbly after that, aren’t you?” he comments as they finally come to the edge of camp, just as he has to catch her when she stumbles on an exposed tree root.

She laughs a little, shaking her head. “There was a brief moment I thought you were going to drain me completely, actually. You took quite a bit of blood.”

“Mm. I am sorry about that, my dear. I suppose I’m just not used to not killing people when I bite.”

He helps her over to her bedroll, kneeling with her so that she can collapse heavily on the pile of blankets and furs. She sighs, blissful at finally being horizontal, as she says, “Well. Try to remember that I’m a fair bit smaller than your average boar next time.”

Astarion laughs one more time, brushing the back of his knuckles once against her cheek before the sound of rustling fabric meets her ears. When she opens her eyes to look up at him again, he’s standing over her, smirking and wiping at the corner of his mouth with one delicate finger.

“I will. For now, though, my dear—though you were intoxicating—I need something a bit more filling. If you’ll excuse me…”

She snorts. “Go. Find yourself a bear or something. Have fun.”

“Oh, I will,” he says, as he starts to stalk back towards the forest. She watches him go for a moment, too tired to do much else, only to watch him stop at the edge of the trees, glancing back over his shoulder. “Oh, and Song?”

“Mm?”

“This was a gift. I won’t soon forget it. Thank you.”

She smiles, closing her eyes as sleep starts to drag her under. “Anytime,” she sighs, lazily waving a hand towards him as she turns her head back towards the sky. “Have a good hunt.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

The last thing she hears before sleep claims her is the sound of him laughing to himself, and then the rustling of leaves before all is still again, and she’s left with the sound of her sleeping teammates and the quiet crackle of the campfire to aid her on her way.

#my writing #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion/oc #baldur's gate fanfiction #??? how do tag #song sedlak #50 notes

101 notes · View notes