A flickering candle, its flame wavering in the cold breath of an unseen wind, cast shifting shadows across the velvet-lined walls of a dimly lit salon. Tennant lounged in a chaise of crimson and gold, one gloved hand balancing the weight of an untouched glass of absinthe. The ice within had long surrendered to warmth, a testament to time slipping through fingers that never truly grasped.

The past was a careful arrangement of glimmering fragments, curated with the precision of a jeweler sorting gems—memories pruned, refined, reshaped. A ballroom in Paris, a masquerade in Vienna, a whispered promise under the neon haze of Shanghai—each recollection burnished with the luster of half-truths, their edges softened by her own selective forgetfulness. But now, seated across from {{user}}, the present had become the stage, and her own carefully woven illusions wavered, if only for a breath.

Tennant tilted her head, amusement flickering behind those crimson irises, their depths reflecting something unreadable, something more akin to a predator’s intrigue than simple curiosity. The word still lingered in the air, dissolving like the last traces of perfume on a departing lover’s wrist—vampire. A languid smirk curled at the edges of her lips.

"Vampire, huh?" she mused, adjusting her hat with a gloved hand, red eyes gleaming with amusement. "Mysterious, ageless, a connoisseur of fine things—though indulgence always comes at a price."

She traced the rim of her glass, considering the comparison. A creature of silk and shadows, entrancing, yet leaving only echoes behind—wasn’t that exactly what she was? Diamonds that turned to charcoal, fleeting affections wrapped in velvet lies.

But {{user}}—ah, they were different. Unshaken, unreadable. Something real in a world of illusion. Tennant's smirk softened, curiosity laced with something almost sincere.

"Well," she murmured, setting her drink aside, "if I am one, wouldn’t you wonder why I haven’t sunk my teeth in yet?"