Sophia comes into the room, bearing a pair of turkey sandwiches on a small platter. 

"Your order, Milady." She lays it down on the table between Ishaza and Alethia, her face impassive.

"Thank you, Sophia." Ishaza takes a moment to fix her hair before she picks up her first sandwich, tucking a strand of her white locks behind her pointed right ear. Her fingers fall to her lips, and she gives Alethia a considering look. 

"You're quite sure you don't require any blood?"

She is not going to keep staring at those lips.

"I'll be good for quite a while, I think. I don't expect to suffer for the lack any time soon."

Correction, she is going to stare at those lips for a second or three longer than she should as she talks and then look back up into Ishaza's eyes.

Not intentionally, it just sort of happens.

Ishaza looks back at her steadily, her gaze holding with Alethia's for perhaps a second before she shakes her head slightly. 

"If you're refusing merely to spare me inconvenience, there's no sense in that." 

She lays her hand palm-up on the table, showing her bare wrist. Sure enough, there are faint track marks along it, the white marks of long-healed puncture wounds on her violet skin. "Crin feeds from me often," Ishaza says. "I'm quite used to the sensation by now. And I trust your control from what I've seen."

Her gaze is fixed on Ishaza's wrist for a moment.

Okay, now is not the time for her new instincts to pipe up and say that drinking from a very attractive woman is both appetizing and lewdness-adjacent, thank you very much.

The instincts do not seem to care that she has rebuked them.

Curses.

"Even if you're used to it, it certainly can't be fun. There's no reason to cause you a bit of pain more often than I have to."

Ishaza raises an eyebrow. "It's not painful," she says. "There's venom in vampire fangs that, ah..." Her lips twitch up a little. "Causes quite the opposite, actually. And I'm quite used to it by now, such that I'd hardly notice a bite to the wrist. I'm familiar with bites in more vulnerable places than that." 

Ishaza lifts her hair and her jaw tentacle away from her neck, and another line of bite-marks comes to light along her carotid. "As you can see." 

She stares for longer, this time.

That instinctual pulse, that tied-together sense of- hunger and thirst and desire- it's stronger, staring at Ishaza's neck. Just staring is nice, even if she isn't actually going to drink. She can see Ishaza's veins pulsing slightly with her heartbeat, and it's- really nice.

She blinks suddenly and looks back up at Ishaza's face, suddenly a bit embarrassed.

"I'll be okay."

She, uh, is not exactly sure how long she spent staring. It could have been as short as a couple seconds, and it certainly couldn't have been longer than ten. But- well, staring for ten seconds is noticeable. And if she was staring somewhere else it really would be quite boorish.

Ishaza gently lowers her hair again.

"... I wouldn't trust that instinct of yours, given how long it took you to say that. You won't be putting me out at all by drinking when you don't strictly need to, and I would much rather that than have your control break suddenly at some future point. It doesn't have to be me - I can summon Sophia, she is also quite used to being bitten - but I would very much encourage you to feed, and soon." 

She blinks.

Huh, that actually makes perfect sense, given what Ishaza's seen. She doesn't know that it won't get any worse that right now, uh, literally ever. Or that it was honestly the way that it was- lewdness adjacent- that was capturing her attention.

"You know, that's a very good point. I, ah, would I think prefer not to call Sophia back in, if you really don't mind."

Ishaza nods. "It's quite alright. I understand that having a new set of instincts is awkward, and it may seem that the best thing to do is ignore them and hope they go away, but when was the last time that worked for you on a long-term basis with any of your needs? Better to adapt and learn to partake in moderation." 

Ishaza stands up from her chair and comes over to Alethia's side. "Here," she says, and leans forwards to present her bare forearm beneath Alethia's chin. Her cleavage comes within a few inches of the left of Alethia's head. "Bite anywhere you want."

Okay, she is going to keep her eyes off of Ishaza's cleavage and lean in and bite Ishaza softly on the wrist. She moves carefully; even though Ishaza's said what she has she still doesn't want to hurt her.

Once her new fangs are pressed against Ishaza's skin her hesitation melts away. The sensation of pressure against her fangs, of heat against them, is alluring. It pushes on something in her hindbrain just right. She bites through the skin and her gaze fixes itself on Ishaza's breasts in the same moment.

Ishaza sighs lowly. It seems clear that she's trying to control herself, but that she's enjoying the bite nonetheless. She lays her other hand on Alethia's shoulder to steady herself, and closes her eyes for a long moment. 

Her blood tastes rich and sweet, tinged with a subtle heat that spills outward from Alethia's stomach to settle in her limbs.

That sigh does such interesting things to Ishaza's chest. And her eyes are closed. She can just stare.

That warmth is absolutely settling in places besides her limbs, and combined with the view she's getting right now she's having a very pleasant time.

She kind of wants to bite Ishaza's neck and do other things, actually, but- no, that's unwise. And also hasn't actually been offered.

It's nice to think about, though.

After a long moment, Ishaza reluctantly withdraws her arm. 

"That's all that's safe to take," she says, and presses her free hand over the trickle of blood that runs down her forearm. "If you need to feed more than that, it's best if you spread it across both me and Sophia. Shall I call her? I need something to clean this up with in any case..."

She blinks and almost lets out a sad little whine as Ishaza withdraws her arm. But she controls herself. She does stare forlornly at Ishaza's wrist and that little trickle of blood for a moment, though.

All that said, she isn't a normal vampire and the fugue that took hold of her while she was drinking Ishaza's blood fades quickly. She spends half a moment taking stock of herself and, uh- yeah, the warmth settling in her body and the view she was getting combined to give her a very good reason to be glad her clothing is, uh, concealing. Not terribly so, but enough that there is not in fact visible evidence besides her blush of how much she enjoyed that.

The blush is, um, probably evidence enough but plausible deniability is important to her right now.

She feels a little pulse behind her pants when Ishaza mentions feeding more and Sophia, but she isn't going to let her arousal make her choice here. Staring that much at Ishaza's chest is embarrassing enough. And, um, it wouldn't be right to Sophia to- enjoy doing something like that with her without her knowing that was the only reason she was doing it.

"I'll be okay. I- don't feel hungry in quite the same way, anymore."

"I'm glad to hear that," Ishaza says. "Sophia?" She calls over her shoulder.

Sophia steps into the room again within moments. "Yes, Milady?"

"I need a bandage for this," she says, presenting her bleeding forearm. 

Sophia produces a bandage from a pocket of her dress, and quickly has Ishaza's puncture-marks cleaned and bandaged. "Milady," she says. "Would you like a restorative tea prepared?"

"Please," Ishaza replies. "The usual preparation."

She looks back at Alethia and rubs her bitten wrist gently with two fingers. "Well, that was an interesting diversion." She smiles, and takes her seat across the table from Alethia again. "Thank you for humoring me. I must confess I've become a little attached to my status as Crin's favorite to bite over the years, so it's good to be able to apply my knowledge for someone else."

Ishaza describing herself as Crin's "favorite bite" is not helping her quest to pull her mind out of the gutter. It's an interestingly novel gutter but she should still not spend her time in it, she needs to be thinking clearly.

"There's- knowledge and expertise involved?"

That was definitely the wrong question to ask, Alethia!

Ishaza smiles wryly. "A certain degree of, ah, presence of mind is necessary, and the knowledge of how deep a drink is too deep has been carefully transferred to me by Crin over the last few years. There was a time when I relied more on her generosity to keep myself safe, but over the years I've come to be able to do the safety checks myself. She's been very patient with me as I've learned. Sophia's been through a similar learning process as well."

Yeah, she was right, that was the wrong question to ask.

She twitches inside her clothing again and once more fights off the urge to ask for another drink.

She manages to cut herself off from saying something like, say, "I can see why the presence of mind is necessary, that certainly looked distracting," but not from imagining saying it which is at least one third as bad.

"Ah. Well, I'm glad you managed it."

She looks at Ishaza's bandaged wrist.

"Is the tea a better option than just healing the wound would be? Or does it- help with something that the healing wouldn't?"

"Hysh healing draws on the body's natural reserves to restore itself, and also has some mild side-effects that right now I'd prefer not to deal with. A simple restorative tea will do the work in good time, and Crin has Sophia and others to feed upon if need be."

She touches over her heart with her bandaged hand. "Also, Hysh healing requires that you be able to summon up a strong conviction that you deserve to be whole, which... I feel I would not be able to muster easily at this time, as I do not actually mind this small injury in the least."