Dean contemplated his nature as he reached out, extending one broken, mangled hand to brush the soldier’s wrist. Donovan was the light: stalwart healing. And he was everything in the opposite direction; shadows, death, stealth. And also, perhaps to the least and greatest degree simultaneously, he was necromancy. Thus, Dean could not heal himself in the conventional sense, not without Donovan’s aid. Shadows were never intended as defensive creations. They were weapons. Thus it was now, touching the would-be thief.<br/><br/>Borrowing on the man’s fear, drawing on the power that Donovan had freely lent him and the freedom of the gem he’d just used, Dean performed a small Mimicking. One moment he was a broken shell of a man, barely clinging to life. The next, he was a pale-skinned, red lipped creature of nightmare, mouth full of fangs. Conscious despite his paralysis, the soldier tried to scream as his nightmare was made manifest.<br/><br/>Looking into the man’s eyes, feeling the power of the new form, Dean murmured in a thick, awkward accent, “Come to me, child.” It sounded more like ‘Vum do me, thild’ but whatever – what was important was that the soldier felt it, knew what he was saying on a subconscious level. Fueled by his own terror, the soldier leaned close. Rolling his eyes at the drama of it all, Dean bit down on the man’s neck. Veins of black shot through the soldier, black that spread like a horrible arcane disease. Simultaneously, Dean’s body went limp, his flesh emptying out like a sack of wine sliced in half by a sword.<br/><br/>It was over quickly. Dean consumed the soldier’s life essence and poured his shadowy essence into the man’s corpse-body, remaking it with the instinctive skill of all shadows. Unlikely that other shadows would have had the freedoms and power of Dean, of course, particularly in this moment. But Dean wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. A few minutes after the man had unwisely approached, Dean stood where the soldier had been, immaculate and handsome and whole. The thing caught in the beams wasn’t even recognizable as human – it was just a sack of rotting meat and bones.<br/><br/>“Now, that’s better,” Dean said, no longer fanged. The feast had him thinking though. He could detect Donovan’s gentle tug in the far distance, pin-point him with a little concentration. No doubt Donovan would be casting off soon, which would precipitate Dean needing to leave this place as quickly as possible. On the other hand, Dean was feeling quite malevolent. Something about inhabiting the psychic space of a greater vampire just…set him off and made him want to do bad things.<br/><em><br/>-How long do I have, my Knight?</em>- Dean sent, his mental voice redolent with his wicked intent. Dean’s power was mostly spent after that body exchange – which meant he was feeling particularly….virulent.<br/>