“Talking to mysterious strangers who are also invisible is kind of dumber than talking to mysterious strangers in general. Sometimes they, like, reveal their true form later, and they’re actually an eldritch demon trying to collect your soul. Or your evil twin. Or an eldritch demon trying to collect the soul of your evil twin.”

"Uh, good to know I guess?  That doesn't so much happen where I'm from.  Also it was like, dark; I dunno if I'd jump to 'invisible' just from the fact I couldn't see them."

“You’re probably fine.”

"Cool.  So, uh.  Now what?"

“I was, you know, traveling vaguely west, do you want to come with?”

"That sure sounds better than staying here alone in the forest till I starve or something!"

Spot starts slowly trotting vaguely westward.

”Starving! Can’t recommend it. Terrible, really. Starving: don’t do it. Starving? More like starve’nt. A spot a day keeps the starving away. - that just, like, makes it sound like you should eat me. You shouldn’t eat me but if you did I would be delicious.”

She follows.  "I totally promise not to eat you!  - Uh.  Like, I mean - well - yeah, no, definitely no immediate you-eating plans at the moment."

“You’re really not very good at being reassuring. That’s okay, though! Most people are pretty bad at most things.”

"....I can explain?"

“No pressure.”

Trot trot trot.

"O...kay?  Uh, it'll probably come up anyway unless I find a way to get home pretty quick."

“- if you don’t want to explain the thing right now then you don’t have to. If you want to then you can. You met me, like, an hour ago.”

"Normally it would be a secret but you already have magic here so I think it's probably not as big of a deal - are vampires like, a thing that you've heard of?"

“There are people who used to be bats who used to be people! I don’t think you’re talking about them, though.”

"Yeah naw.  So, uh, where I'm from, most people don't have magic or know it exists.  But it does!  And there are people who get some of it when they drink someone else's blood, and so does the person they drink from.  I have kind of a lot of it - enough to vamp me, and then some - but I can't get any more without another vamp unless I do that.  So if I did, I would need to drink somebody's blood to get magic, and also like, it does have to be somebody, not just something, right; regular animals don't work back home, and I'd be curious to find out which way my magic counted you.  And like, obviously that would only be if you're down for it, and it would only be a little, but like, I'm in a fairytale magic forest or some crap and it seems dumb to go around phrasing things as promises when by the literal interpretation that might not be what I mean."

“People who used to be bats who used to be people have some of those traits but not all of them. If you want to drink some of my blood you can, I don’t need all of it to be in my body. Strangers in forests can have little a blood, as treat.”

"Well, not for a bit, thanks though.  - Also, you've been totally comprehensible this whole time, but there was kind of a hiccup there and now I'm realizing it would be pretty weird if you were speaking English; do you have any idea what's up with that?"

“I don’t, like, have human vocal cords. I’m just talking.”

".... Huh.  Do you think I'd be able to speak with other - people, then?"

“You could probably talk to people who used to be animals who used to be people! I don’t think you could talk to people who used to be nothing. People who used to be nothing can’t do very many interesting things, it’s very sad.”

"Hm.  - If ex-bats are vampire-like, what will you be like when you're an ex-dog?"

“Ex-dogs are more common than most other kinds of former animal and they have more variation! I don’t know what former Great Pyrenees can do. Most people who used to be dogs who used to be people can do some protective magic and have to keep up social contact to do things, I’ll probably get something like that. I hope I don’t run on love, I like most people but I don’t really love anyone.”

"Totes legit.  - Were you walking more towards the west or away from the east?  Or just like, wherever."

“I was following a trail, actually, I met a super suspicious fish and, like, I would’ve let it be if it’d only been mildly suspicious, but a super suspicious fish is probably up to something bad or something good. Also it was swimming through the air and that was weird. And I was bored. Trail’s pretty cold now, though, so if you really wanted to go in another direction we could.”