"Oh, you purr. Vampires can purr! That's adorable, I am delighted, that's going in the pluses column."

"—oh, yeah. And growl."

"Not an adorable plus, but not a negative. It can go into the neutral column."

James thinks about it for a bit and then smirks. She's his mate, so...

He growls, quietly, it's almost indistinguishable from a purr except for how it's more—raw, animalistic. Sexy, even.

She goes very still and blinks up at him. If he's paying attention, that looks like a faint blush to her cheeks.

"... Nnnnot a neutral," she says, very quietly, after a pause. She shivers a little. It... is not a bad kind of shiver. "Nevermind, I take it back, I apologize for my hasty categorization."

He just grins, a smug "I knew it" grin.

"And we are moving right along now," she declares, nestling further into her blankets to hide her face. Her voice is slightly muffled. "So how bad is the unpleasantness from being thirsty all of the time?"

"It's about as bad as turning, at its worst, but concentrated to the throat area, and it flares whenever human blood is brought to our attention."

"And turning is bad enough that people in the middle of it routinely want to die. Okay. I'd take it over dying, though. Especially if it can be mitigated with frequent, uh, quenching. Animal based quenching."

He nods. "It can, when you're not hungry and not around any humans it's not hard to distract yourself from the thirst."

"Okay. I expect to be able to tolerate the world's most annoying sore throat for all eternity."

He has the best mate.

Aw.

"So are culinary pursuits barred to me forever? You just had a coffee, earlier."

"It provides me with no nutrition or positive sensory experiences, and I would have to, ah, regurgitate any solid foods I consume."

"Ah. Okay. Culinary pursuits are barred to me forever, got it. Luckily for us both, I'm not a foodie and find cooking annoying, so."

"That would be why I said I have no trouble with dishes," he explains with a wry grin.

Snort. "Yes, I suppose that follows, doesn't it. All right then."

"Feeding can be messy, especially when you're new at it, and that's why I do sometimes have trouble with my wardrobe. Although I tend to be a clean eater."

"Ah. Do you not have retractable fangs or... something? It's just. Rip a thing open and drink its fluids like a human with super strength and invulnerability?"

"My teeth feel sharper against my skin now than my human teeth used to feel against my human skin, that's a memory I managed to keep. So no, no fangs, just sharpness and strength and durability."

"That sounds very messy. I would have liked a tidy set of fangs," she sniffs.

"On behalf of vampirism, I apologize."

"I accept your apology on behalf of vampirism. However, I also feel it is incorrect to need to kill people you drink from and for all vampires to have the instinctual urge to rip every human's throat out. I am less inclined to accept vampirism's apology for that one," she says, loftily.

"I expect vampirism would not apologize for that one, either."

"Bah. And now just for that, I am motivated to figure out a way for all vampires everywhere to not eat people anymore," she sniffs. "Without making them all drink animal blood that they'd find disgusting. I can't imagine I could get them all to do that without overthrowing the vampiric government and threatening them, and I don't particularly want to rule the world."