unyieldingmarch | Aefenglom IC Inbox

[Edelgard looks back at Mikasa and gives her a nod, then steps closer to the child, putting a hand on Leslie's shoulder.]

Edelgard von Hresvelg is correct.

[She gives the girl's shoulder a quick squeeze, and lowers her voice.]

Leslie, it's alright. My name was a foreign one to you, when you arrived. I knew that. You've gotten it down now, so there's no need to worry.

[Oh honestly this is all just kind of cute.]

[Leslie...Mikasa just nods her head in return to Edelgard.]

Mikasa Ackerman, if we're using full names. [A formality Mikasa wasn't bothered by. Especially not with what she'd learned about her name in the past few years.]

People used to say my name wrong too.

[But then Leslie is hiding and that's cute. It gets a small, muffled, gigglesnort. Sorry, not sorry. ]

[Leslie does peek out over her hands thanks to the encouragement, but she still looks mortified.]

I still should have waited until I could say it better before I started using it in public, though. But...thank you, Lady Edelgard, Mikasa.

[She doesn't provide her own full name, though. She still doesn't feel like she can claim a family name she likes and she doesn't want to be associated with the one she legally has right now.]

Leslie...it's alright.

[Really, this is just a bit silly, okay? Don't be like this. In fact, she's going to step in, and gather Leslie up against her in another one of those hugs she's getting somewhat more comfortable giving.]

It's a foreign word and you had just learned it, and there's no harm in saying it wrong.

[Mikasa was still giving that almost smile as she relaxed back into her seat.. Well that sure changed the mood in here.]

When I was young I had trouble saying some words too. [Granted for a very long time. She'd only had two people to talk to, by the time she had more she didn't want to talk.]

...Did you manage to find somewhere for the bread?

[Leslie might still be a little slow to start initiating hugs, but she's growing comfortable with receiving them pretty quickly, returning this one after maybe a couple of more seconds of embarrassed face-hiding. Edelgard probably has about five more stamps on her hugs card before Leslie reaches the tipping point where she gets comfortable enough to start initiating hugs, in which case get ready for Leslie to glom onto Edelgard regularly.]

Yes, I put the bread away. Um, would you like to try some, Lady Edelgard? I was going to be making tea, too.

[A good part of Leslie slamming the door open like that is that it'll be easy to hear the kettle whistling if Leslie gets distracted for too long and forgets she already put it on.]

[She'll be waiting for that day, but for now she's content to slide free and take a stance to the side so she's not obstructing the view for Mikasa. Honestly, this child is too cute.]

I'd love to. Thank you.

[Ah...right, the whistle.]

Perhaps go check the kettle? It seems to be ready.

[Enjoy that unobstructed view of Mikasa's pupils just completely covering her eyes as she watches the scene, Edelgard. Because Mikasa enjoying the cute. Even if she wasn't on the receiving end of the hugs.

Though the sudden whistle makes her head snap around to look back at the door. Her short antenna dancing at it. Only pausing when the word kettle is mentioned. She couldn't smell a fire-]

I think you're more used to how the fires work here than I am...

[~~Doctors in Aefenglom recommend two doses of Leslie per day for your mental health needs.~~

Leslie's smile widens, but ah, there's the whistle. She disengages from the hug, though she freezes for half a second at the word "fires." She understands what Mikasa means once the parts of her brain other than her stem catch up, though, so it's just a momentary stutter.]

Bernadetta has been teaching me. I'll be back with tea! And bread.

[She hurries into the kitchen, but pauses long enough to properly close over the door to the kitchen at a non-embarrassment-panic-induced pace. She'll be back in a bit ~~but it might be a two person thread again for a bit~~.]

Hah, I'll leave you to it, then.

[Leaving Edelgard alone with Mikasa? Fair enough.

The emperor moves back to her seat, settling in with a pleased sigh, turning back to the young woman seated across from her.]

So, you met Leslie when she first arrived? I trust she hasn't been too much trouble.

[Plainly, she's teasing. Leslie is a saint.]

[Mikasa watches the door for another moment. Then turns back to respond.]

Before that, we met in the dream. If anything, I'd say I was the trouble. [Mikasa might have been taking the comment seriously, or she was joking. The sigh is also returned, though it's a much more somber.]

It seems like magic is common in most places. She had to warn me about that.

Hah. Well, she's not really a troublemaker at all.

[Quite the opposite.]

And is it not common where you're from? It's...rather normal where I am from. Though my own magic is gone, thanks to my transformation.

It's not a thing at all...If it is I've never seen it. [There was quite a few things that hadn't been explained yet. But most of those had just become a part of life for her. Titans were humans that had been changed. How she didn't know, it involved an injection. But the same could be said for phones.

She knew there was a scientific explanation. But Mikasa was just a farm girl who didn't understand it. But Edelgard's last words get her a pause and an evaluating stare.] You're a monster?

[Edelgard looks at Mikasa and smiles wider than before, revealing fangs that hang from her upper lip.]

I am a vampire.

[Simple as that. No real reason to beat around the bush, there.]

[Mikasa blinks, leaning forward in her seat to look. ~~Rood~~. She'd heard of vampires, briefly. Only the basics, that they didn't like the sun, drank blood.]

...You don't seem to have changed very much.

[She still looked more human than Mikasa did at this point. Unless she'd changed a lot and this was the end result.But Mikasa had no way of knowing that.]

On the outside? I haven't.

[Edelgard shrugs at that.]

I'm allergic to the sun, to the point where it can kill me, and I drink blood, as you might have guessed.

[She tilts her head to show the fangs better.]

And I died, last month. My heart no longer beats, and without food my body is relatively cool.

It's hard to notice inside changes... [She'd noticed little things, being hungrier than normal. How things smelled. The odd, slight hum that seemed to pulse through some items and beings.

Whatever else she was going to say to that is lost though.]

You don't look very dead...I've seen corpses less than a month old and they're different. [Unless this was more magic, the answer to everything.]

Well, that would be because I'm one of the undead. I do take pains to appear as normal as possible. It may be vain, but it's important to me.

[Edelgard holds out her hand, the one that hadn't been on the cup.]

Feel my hand, Mikasa.

[She's wearing a glove, because she always does, but it's...cool, if not quite icy.]

You're pale...[No blue or black patches forming in some areas, or funky smells.

But Mikasa does as she's asked. Right arm stretching out, sleeve sliding back enough to show some of the bandages covering her forearm. Taking the cold hand with her much warmer one.

She squints for a second, hand moving slightly so her fingers could reach to check a pulse.

...

Welp, nothing. Her hand is just going to slip away silently.]

...But how are the vampires that have always lived here if you had to die to become one

[Is this what those necromancers were doing?]

I am.

[Edelgard's glove extends well, well up beyond her wrist. But there's definitely no pulse. She's. Definitely dead.]

...It's a kind of magic. When one starts to transform into a vampire, you die at the end of the transformation. I don't know how it works if one's born as a vampire in this world.

Honestly, I never thought to ask.

...Not long ago. We ran into a group of people who used magic on corpses to make them move. But they couldn't talk.

[She's settling back into her seat. Those creatures had been very different though. The only similarity was that neither of them had a pulse.

Mikasa lets out a small, unsure noise. Before she comments though. Because even if she was blunt, this was a bit.]

It looks like it was a peaceful death though..? [No torn off limbs or anything.]

I killed several necromancers, myself. Out at the ruins near the new outpost?

[She is familiar with them. And she was not merciful.]

You are correct though. It was peaceful. I passed into a sleep, and woke up a day later, when the transformation finished.

[She hums, nodding.] Those are the ones. They didn't have a lot useful to say.

[Mikasa might have seen one being interrogated. Not very will, her eyes could see through illusions too well for that to work. But the one they'd caught hadn't said anything. Mostly just taunts.]

All in one night? Mine seems so much more...gradual. And itchy... [Though she'd learnt not scratch after the first time. When Leslie had checked to see how bad it was and had stained her coat-]

Were you able to clean Leslie's coat after that?

No...no. I'd been changing slowly for months. My fangs grew in, and I became sick a lot more easily. Then I stopped being able to eat normal food for sustenance, and...other minor changes.

Some positive, like turning my body into mist? But plenty of negatives.

[At the mention of the coat...]

Was that you? Yes, we managed to get it cleaned...but...I never asked what happened.

So it was more internal... Though I don't know what's happening there.

[She had good senses. But other than eating more and becoming fidgety, she hadn't noticed anything. Though that could have been the access to more food, and the lack of fighting.]

...Yes. A lump of the shell came off. It didn't hurt but the blood made her panic.

[Leslie had tried.] I'm glad. I'm not sure if I'd be able to afford to replace it.

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oops, I thought I'd replied to this but it was just open in a tab

you fool!

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