"You're welcome!" Snuggle snuggle.

Slightly pensive snuggle! She feels sort of weird for dating a murderer.

"In other news, it turns out that there is... a rather striking difference in things, being on a strictly animal diet. I wonder how I never noticed."

"A rather striking difference in things? What do you mean?"

"I am... physically weaker, but my brain is working differently? And if I think back on the previous times I ate animals, that was there, too, they were just sufficiently special circumstances that it did not register. It is... easier to control my emotions. It is easier to resist human blood. It is easier to focus on one thing at a time."

"Oh. That's interesting. And sounds preferable."

"I'm not sure I would have agreed before, but now I sure do."

"That does add a new complicating element to this. Human blood not just being delicious, but also mentally impairing towards vampires in a way that makes it harder for them to stop drinking it." She huffs, then hides her face in his marble shoulder. "This is a hard problem and I hate it."

He nods. "Yeah, it is. I am not sure what a fix would even look like."

"Mm. Especially with how decentralized vampire society seems to be. It makes it hard to get leverage. You have one government entity, that everyone avoids, that has little to no interest in this problem at all. I highly doubt every single vampire can be talked out of eating people, even putting aside the mental effects caused by drinking blood. So some would need to be either strong-armed, bribed, or given a better option. Only the vampire government can strong-arm it, and they have no interest in it. And what do you bribe someone with when they would have to be eating the equivalent of rotting garbage to accept it?" Snuggle. "Blood donations could work, and then they could drink human blood without killing people, but that's if vampires were known to humans, and if the blood were easier to acquire than murder victims. But they're not, and also not, and the vampire government has made telling humans illegal. Furthermore, it would also make a human population necessary to keep on hands at all times, which seems like it would go extremely poorly if vampires were publicly known."

She huffs a sigh. "Blood substitute that's easier to get than a random murder victim and tastes just as good? But where would that even come from."

"Not to mention that... blood outside a warm, living body becomes inedible rather fast."

"Eugh. Great. Fresh blood, straight from the vein. Wonderful. As if this wasn't an entire mess of logistics already."

Snuggle. Yeah he has no solutions here.

"Why couldn't you be nice vampires! With fangs! And the ability to leave humans alive after acquiring some fluids from them! That would be much nicer and easier to implement massive societal changes from, logistically speaking!"

—he sporfles.

"Hush, you, if you eventually talk me into marrying you you're going to have to listen to me whine about the lack of fangs for eternity, because it is just so tragic!"

"I am rather certain you will be too overwhelmed by all the other great bits."

"Nope, I will complain about the lack of fangs out of petty spite, now."

"You are a delight."

"Thank you, I try!"

She pecks him gently on the cheek.

Snuggle snuggle.

Snuggle snuggle.

"You're keeping track of the time, right, my kitchen is not about to catch fire?"

He laughs. "Built-in clock."

"You have a built-in clock?"

"More or less, yes. More like a built-in sense of time."