Author's note: This assignment was to write a scene between two characters, one insider to the world and one outsider, and an eavesdropper, using no more than three dialogue tags. I used characters and a setting I thought of a while ago, but haven't actually used in writing before.

Sharp voices cut into Aurel's sleep, reminding him him he was alive. At first, he just felt irritated. He wanted no part of consciousness. It took a few minutes before he woke up enough to be scared. And then he was very scared.

"Drink. So that I may drink."

The voice was cold, whispery, demanding yet charming. He'd heard that kind of rasping before. It was a vampire. And here he was, unclaimed blood. He wondered if the vampire could smell the blood he'd spilled, now dry and crusted on his clothes. He wondered what he could do about it. There was nowhere to go. It would see him if he left from his hiding spot in the bushes. It would smell him if he stayed.

"I ain't got no pot to boil it with." This voice was younger, meeker, unrefined. A classic sign of a limited hearing range, and a lack of conscious attention to tones. A human. A woman or a little child. Aurel was not good at distinguishing between human voices, but he could tell it wasn't a grown man.

"Are you thirsty?"

"Yessir."

"Then your choice is between a chance of getting sick from microorganisms in the water, or a surety of sick of dehydration. I recommend you drink."

"Your crorganisms?"

"My – no, not my 'crorganisms.' Micro­-organisms. It's... the things in the water than can make you sick." He paused and seemed to consider. "Dehydration means thirst, before you ask."

"I know what the hydration is," she said, with an audible scowl.

"How clever of you."

There were a few faint splashes, a small addition to the trickling of the stream. The human had probably decided on drinking the unboiled water after all. Aurel turned his ear to the duo, the vampire and his human, in a feeble attempt to assess the threat. As good as his hearing was, he desperately wished for his eyesight. He may not be able to go anywhere either way, but he was sure he would at least feel safer.

He tried to relax, to feel the cool dirt on his face and calm his breathing. The human was just a bloodcow. She would be no threat. A vampire with a bloodcow would be much less of a threat than otherwise. Some vampires were cruel enough to kill senselessly, but most wouldn't kill if they weren't thirsty.

"You never told me your name," said the vampire.

A gulp. "You ain't asked it."

"Well, you might as well tell me now."

Another gulp. "Asha, only, my friends call me Ash. I mean, they used to. Used to call me Ash."

"Well, which would you prefer I call you? Ash, or Asha?"

"It don't matter." She sounded glum.

"Then I'll call you Asha. I suppose we're not friends, and Asha is prettier. I'm Cyril. Cyril Procházka."

"That's a long name. I didn't know y'all had names."

"'Y'all?'"

"Y'all vampires."

"Why on earth would we not have names?"

"I dunno. I just never knew you did. I never thought about it."

A pause. "I'll drink now, if you don't mind."

The girl let out a startled cry, then they were both silent. Aurel began to relax, began to drift back to that strange state between dreams and consciousness that one found oneself in when too tired to be awake, but in too much pain to sleep. The vampire was no additional threat. He only had to worry about hunger, and pain, and blindness... the fairies... Images loomed over him, his imagination projecting on his useless eyes. It was the pain in his eyes that bothered him most. In his dream one of the fairies was grasping his skull, fingers ripping straight through his eye sockets to grip the bone. He groaned, trying to shake the fairy off, but she wouldn't go away. She shook him back...

"Well, well. Looks like we found a runaway."

It was the voice of the vampire from before. Aurel tried to scramble away, but he was pinned down by a boot pressed firmly against his chest. He tried to spout an apology, a plea, but his mind could not retrieve the words any more than his dry mouth could form them.

"Oh, it's a boy! Poor thing!" A series of splashes. The bloodcow was coming towards them, from the other side of the stream. Aurel turned his face towards the sight of the noise, searching for compassion which would not save him in a face he would not see.

"I told you to wait," the vampire rebuked half-heartedly. "No mind. I suppose if I bothered to ask you what you were doing here, you would have nothing to say that I wouldn't have been able to figure out from looking at you."

"I- I'm just..."

"Running from the fairies? Yes?"

Aurel said nothing.

"Pity. If I'd known you were here any earlier, I could have saved my human some blood. As it is, I can't let you live now that you knew we were here. I'm full now though. What a waste."

"You're going to kill him?" A final, larger splash, followed by a constant stream of dripping, as Asha climbed out onto the shore. "But, he ain't done nothing to you!"

A sigh. "It's too complicated to explain. But no one can know I was here."

Aurel felt himself relaxing under the vampire's boot. It was pointless to struggle or argue. Better this than recapture by the fairies. Better this than a slow death to the elements. He turned his head to the sound of the dripping water, the location of the compassionate human girl. "If you..." His words came out as a fractured squeak, and he paused, wet his lips, and tried again. There was no excuse for speaking sloppily, especially if these would be his last words. "If you kill me, will you let me lay my head on something soft?"