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[shamebat]

Hello, this is Nadja. Please leave a message and I will return to it later.

Comments

Re: [evening]

[no_innocents]

He is, actually.

[ he had been quite pleased. It had felt… very good. ]

I hope the same happens soon for your Laszlo.

Re: [evening]

[shamebat]

Thank you. Laszlo..I don't know how far along he is. We agreed at the start of this that it would be better to stay out of his affairs with his warden. I could accidentally interfere or set him back.

This is such a lovely surprise, though! What are you going to do first?

Re: [evening]

[no_innocents]

Yes, well, thankfully Adrian has been largely content to remain uninvolved anyway. I think, in general, his presence was helpful.

As for my first action?

What I would have done anyway: work on a project for our mutual survival aboard this ship.

[shamebat]

I should think so too.

What project?

[no_innocents]

Water filtration, apparently. I work in the maintenance supply. And Ye Zun had mentioned he'd be by to use my lab so I've been considering the problem myself.

[shamebat]

Does your kind of vampire normally drink water? Our kind cannot.

[no_innocents]

No, they cannot. I can, but I am hardly normal among my kind.

[shamebat]

You-


Can you eat food?

[no_innocents]

Yes, though it does nothing for me.

[shamebat]

I am very jealous. Laszlo loves his apple trees in the backyard but he cannot taste them.

[no_innocents]

I no longer know if what I taste is what they should taste like. It's been so long.

That is a shame, however,

[shamebat]

I mean, I don't think it's such a big shame. He can turn into a bat and has untold number of gifts he traded for eternal life.

But yes, sometimes he gets a little sad. I can smell it on him.

[no_innocents]

Yes, of course.

Do your taste anything in the blood you take?

[shamebat]

If they are on drugs or have a lot of alcohol in them, we can feel like we are on drugs too.

This one time we drank drug blood from some people going to a club and...well, it was very intense. I do not need to tell you all that we did that night.

[no_innocents]

Yes, I have noticed the trend.

Perhaps find one that has enjoyed an apple brandy?

[shamebat]

I would but I think the Admiral wants us to not drink blood directly from the source.

[no_innocents]

The thought was more aimed towards when you're home. Perhaps he could even brew the brandy from his apple orchards.

[shamebat]

He has two or three trees. Hardly an orchard.

So maybe we invite a victim to the house. Make them drunk on apple brandy. And then bite them?

[no_innocents]

I don't see why you shouldn't. A drink for a drink, eh?

[shamebat]

We are wardens. I've never gone so long without killing: have you? And yet you're here encouraging me to slip into bad behavior.

[no_innocents]

Oh, certainly. I've gone quite some time without killing. Mostly by avoiding people.

And you don't have to kill to feed... or do you? I've certainly tasted instead of overindulging.

[shamebat]

It is very exhausting to hypnotize people into forgetting you are biting them. No one knows vampires exist where we come from.

[no_innocents]

...

...that is... ridiculous.

[ A hand raised quickly. ]

Not you, Nadja. I am just... amazed.

[shamebat]

Yes, well. The human population is really...something in the 21st century. Very large and very stupid. And the science of the 19th has pretty much done away with men's ideas of magic. Even Laszlo doesn't believe in things I know in my bones are the truth.

[no_innocents]

Magic has it's place, as does science. Only a fool denies one or the other.