Shattered Star

"And I guess it worked out!" Meliora notes, keeping up with Anastasia's pace. "Is the thing you need to do at the temple really urgent?" Meliora asks, with a bit of concern.

"Yeah, sort of." Anastasia gulps hard as another hunger pang hits her. "Could get very bad if I don't get back."

"Here, I have something that'll help us get back a little faster," Meliora says, conjuring a violin as she walks quickly alongside Anastasia. She plays a bright and sprightly song, and after a minute of the performance, both herself and Anastasia are walking quicker.

Anastasia nods gratefully but says nothing else.

"What is the thing that you need to do at the temple?" Meliora asks. "If there's any other way I can help, just let me know," she says earnestly.

"It's a personal matter," Anastasia says, her voice short. "And... nothing you can help with," she forces out, even though there's a small voice at the back of her head pointing out that yes, there's absolutely something she can do to help.

Meliora nods. "Okay, let's just focus on getting there as fast as we can, then."

By the time the pair reaches the temple, Anastasia feels even worse. Not only is she deeply hungry, but her mouth just feels off. Something is wrong about the shape of her teeth.

Anastasia rushes up the stairs, shouting behind her "Thanks for accompanying me Sumner good luck getting home see you tomorrow!"

As Anastasia rushes through the temple she draws a few eyes. Most importantly it draws the attention of Tori who quickly follows. Once the two have made it to Anastasia’s basement room Tori shuts the door. ”What’s wrong now?” she asks with a look of deep concern.

"Hungry," Anastasia moans. "Haven't fed this week... feels like I'm on the verge of snapping..."

Tori nods and fetches the blood letting instruments and a small basin. She washes the basin and places the instrument tips into candle fire. Once she’s prepped she begins the process. ”You’ve been exerting yourself more lately. It’s possible you may be exacerbating the issue. Might be best for you to take it easy for a while.”

"Might as well ask me to stop breathing," Anastasia mutters. "You know how miserable I get when I'm not active. If I stop and rest I'm just gonna keep thinking about everything I should be doing."

As Ana speaks Tori at first listens earnestly but then horror dawns on her face. ”Ana, your... your teeth.”

"... huh." Anastasia drops to the seat behind her, staring at the wall.

”I wouldn’t have thought you’d take that so calmly,” Tori says, her voice slightly wavering. She picks up the basin and hands it to Ana, beginning to bandage her wound. ”Here is your blood.”

"... I think I'm actually freaking out so much it's looped back around," Anastasia admits, before lifting the basin and drinking greedily from it. When she finishes she sets it down. "Or maybe I screamed myself completely out the other night. Or I've just been mentally preparing myself for this one for long enough."

”I guess there really can’t be any more doubt about what’s going to happen now,” Tori says. She sits there for a moment, quietly tearing up.

"You remember what we promised?" Anastasia says quietly. "If this does reach its conclusion, I'm not going to change, I'm not going to become some evil monster like... like him. And if I do, you're going to stop me. That was the deal, and I'll be damned if I'm going to make you go through that." She sighs. "The books say I'm going to need to feed more and more often at this stage. I can't ask you to do that for me, not the amount I'm going to need."

"So...You have some nice eyes," Ali says, realizes how awkward that sounds, and tries to elaborate, "L-like they're different colors! I think that looks pretty, uhh, neat."