"Yeah! And once we have something I think I'll want to be the one to shake hands and kiss butts, I'm good at that."

Sandy inhales sharply and stares at her.

"Uh, Sadde... You. Uh. Just called yourself a prostitute. In a very vulgar way. Turns of phrase are different here."

Sandy is blushing. She closes her eyes and raises a finger to her temple.

She cracks up. "...seriously? Shaking hands is part of a turn of phrase that means that? That is hilarious."

"No, it was just the second thing. Well sort of. Shaking hands implies business aaand..."

"I," Sandy reports, "Am leaving now."

She stops giggling. "I'm sorry. In my mother tongue it means, er, making other people like you by inflating their ego."

"I guess that makes you CEO, Sandy CFO, and me head of engineering when we get this rolling in a year or two."

"Yeah, pretty much!"

"Sandy will probably be willing to talk to you again tomorrow. When she gets upset at something or leaves because she feels awkward she usually just needs time to cool down."

"I'll try to be less—that—when she's around."

"Yeah, she's a serious sort of person."

"Duly noted. Going to be very serious with her."

"It's most of why I'm friends with her. You can count on her to always be on task and walk away instead of insulting you or starting some petty revenge. That, and we usually like nerding at each other."

"Nerding about what?"

"Board games. We both share the hobby. She has a great bluffing face. I'm better at reading the board, she's better at reading the player."

"Well now I kinda wanna play board games with you two."

"There's a biweekly board game social group thing this Friday. Or I can talk to her later and ask if she wants to do some three-player games."

"I'm fine with either. Might be better to give her a better second impression first, though."

"Telling her about globalization and elecronic trading will be an appropriate peace offering, I think."

"I'll remember it. So what-all did you tell her?"

"Most vampiric qualities except I left out turning and only implied mating, and about your witchcraft, and a summary of a summary of Earth. Oh and some of what the centaur said."

"—oh so she was merely suspicious when she saw the unending love. Will the magic make it better or worse, I wonder?"

"I get the feeling she will more or less accept it as long as I space out the revelations."

"Alright. Will she want to be a vankire somewhere down the line? Not that I'm not planning on figuring out better generalised immortality with magic anyway but this is already on hand and has lots of nice little perks."

"I honestly have no idea. Fairly sure the idea of mating on someone will freak her out, but the pluses might win."

"Well—is she asexual, or aromantic? If she's those I think she is actually immune to mating."