“Vampires have an extra sense. It allows us to perceive something similar to auras although it's more attuned to species than to individuals. It gives me some information on what kind of magic you have and what you just showed me doesn’t fit that.”

Sanna snorts a little. "Okay." Yeah, she doesn't really know anything, she's just trying to psych her out. Maybe she can see enough to suspect, but not enough to be as certain as she's claiming. Not justifiably, anyway.

"I wasn't counting that as one of my questions, so I'll ask another one. Can other species become vampires, or only humans? Like, could you turn a dog into a vampire? If you tried to turn me into one, do you think it would work?"

That’s an irritating reply but she can’t do much about it without the conversation turning into a fruitless argument so she’ll leave it for later.

It’s more irritating that Sanna ‘wasn’t counting it as one of her questions’ but, again, arguing about it isn’t worth it. It’ll be faster to just reply to her new question.

“Trying to turn animals doesn’t work. Vampirism tries to reshape them to be humanoid and with our kind of mind and that doesn’t end well. In most cases they just die in the process, their bodies unrecognisable as either the original species nor vampires. I haven’t had the chance to try turning all humanoid species but my guess is that it will work fine unless native traits oppose it. I don’t know how preexisting magic will interact with it.” There’s one human witch that was turned and her magic was pretty similar, although powered more directly by blood and arguably stronger, but one case is not enough to make predictions. Also, Meredith doesn’t want to tell Sanna anything specific about other species yet. 

(Yeah, it's almost like they literally just made an agreement about which of them gets to ask more questions!)

Well, that's gruesome! But fascinating!

And, apparent confirmation that there are supernatural beings aside from vampires? She might ask about that later. But even just knowing there's more out there is valuable.

This seems like a good segue to ask about the psychological changes Meredith mentioned earlier, but it's Meredith's turn.

(Sanna is realizing she made an error in tacking on another question. Not necessarily a tactical error, but rather a failure to provide appropriate incentives. Meredith had just offered her information, and Sanna rewarded her with open contempt. Asking more questions than she answers is allowed by their agreement, so she doesn't feel guilty, but it wasn't the right time to push on that; punishing Meredith for offering information discourages her from doing that in the future. Sanna did that because she was annoyed and felt like she was being messed with and wanted to change the subject anyway, so she got snarky without thinking. …To be fair, she assumed Meredith's information wasn't offered in good faith, so she didn't feel obligated to respond in good faith; but she shouldn't be making assumptions like that quite so liberally.)

Before Sanna can remind Meredith that it's her turn, the automatic door opens, and a librarian pokes her head out.

"Sorry to interrupt! Are you two sure you don't want to come inside? You must be freezing!"

…It did not occur to Sanna to tell the librarian to not invite Meredith in.

Stupid stupid STUPID

Does that count?

Sanna turns to Meredith with a questioning look. She doesn't want to verbally ask if she wants to go in, or even what she prefers, or even just say 'Your call', just in case any of that somehow counts where the librarian's question alone didn't. (Maybe neither would count alone but they'd count in combination? Sanna doesn't know these things!) Hopefully Meredith is still okay at reading human facial expressions.

(If Meredith is in fact able to enter now, Sanna hopes she says yes. The sun's been down for over an hour, and the temperature's threatening to drop to zero. Even with her jacket on, Sanna's feeling pretty cold.)

Meredith doesn’t feel cold (well, she does feel it but not in a way that bothers her in the slightest), and Sanna had said that they should talk outside so she doesn’t see any reason to actually go in. In fact, she has to contain a twinge of irritation at the librarian for interrupting then.

Still, Sanna might be cold? Will it count as her question if she asks her whether she wants to go in? Since Sanna is counting semi-arbitrarily and she isn’t allowed to complain about it, it might!

“I’m not cold”, she tells the librarian, which might confuse her since she’s not wearing a jacket but whatever, she doesn’t owe her any explanations. Meredith does however turn towards Sanna in case she wants to say anything. She isn’t good enough at human expressions to guess if she’d like to go in.

(And she could have already gone inside without the librarian saying anything but they haven’t discussed how exactly invitations (or the lack thereof) work for her, so it makes sense if Sanna has assumed otherwise.)

Internal sigh. Well, Sanna's not going to say she's cold, for all she knows that might count in this context. Perhaps she is being too paranoid about this

However…

"I'm gonna use the bathroom. I won't be long."

And, if Meredith doesn't stop her, she'll get up and go into the library and lock herself in the bathroom.

Well, she’s not going to restrain her and Sanna either needs to go there for typical bathroom needs, wants to go there because it’ll be warmer, or wants to run away from Meredith. Either way, following her won’t be helpful and will make her more tense. She can wait outside and keep a figurative eye on Sanna (mainly her flair, since it’s the easiest to track) and see if the librarian says anything else.

Nope, the librarian goes back inside when Sanna does. (She does look a little confused when Meredith claims she isn't cold, but she doesn't comment.)

Now that she has some privacy (why didn't she think of this earlier?!), Sanna lets herself cry a little.

She hates this.

She hates not knowing what to do, she hates feeling like every choice she makes is probably wrong, she hates feeling like every choice she could make is probably wrong, she hates feeling like it's all Literally Life or Death, she hates feeling like there's no way out –

That part of her life was supposed to be over, she was supposed to have left it behind –

She told Meredith she might never want to see her again after tonight, and Meredith seemingly agreed to abide by that, but why should Sanna trust that?

And besides, if she never sees Meredith again, she never gets to learn more about what's behind the Veil here.

She can't stand being in this situation, but she doesn't feel like she can afford to remove herself from it.

She hates this hates this hate hate hate hate –

She really sympathizes with what Meredith said earlier, about how it's worse to know something exists and be denied it than to not know it exists at all. She wishes she'd never met Meredith. She wouldn't have gotten this opportunity to pierce the Veil, but she wouldn't know what she was missing, and right now she thinks that would be better than either of the options she has now.

Once she's done crying, she calls Rey again and gives her an update.

Then she comes out of the bathroom, and gives the librarian an update.

And then she goes back outside and sits back down on the bench.

"I think it was your turn to ask a question."

Meredith suspects that Sanna was crying. But she's not running away and Meredith isn't sure anyway so, does it even matter? Not when she can ask about magic instead! 

"It was." She replies, nodding with a smile, "How does the ability you showed me in reply to my earlier question work?", she'd like to know if it's more like telekinesis or if it's relevant that Sanna lifted a water bottle, water manipulation would fit thematically better but that's not a guaranteed confirmation. (Although, really, she shouldn't trust Sanna's word on it, she's likely to lie or at least omit things again. Even Meredith can notice that she isn't excited to tell her about this but, until she says it explicitly, she doesn't actually have to stop asking.)

Ugh. Unless she directly says 'Pass' or whatever, Meredith's not gonna let this one go, is she. Sanna probably should have realized that from the start, and just said 'Pass' to begin with instead of trying to trick her. Stupid!

"I don't really want to go into much detail about this ability. I'll say that I can move things up to a certain size or weight. Both are factors, but I think it's fair to say that they're independent. And I think I'd rather not say more than that about this ability.

"Um… Let's see… Oh yeah. You mentioned the vampire transformation involving psychological changes. What kinds of changes?"

Yup, that’s an annoyingly (if expectedly) vague answer! And Meredith is not going to grit her teeth or frown. She’s going to look calm and answer the questions how she wants hers to be answered.

“There’s some general changes, mainly to keep up with the sensorial and physical ones. And then  there’s the big ones. So, this hasn’t been thoroughly studied,” it’s clear from her tone that she disapproves!, “but I’ll just tell you what I know and believe. Vampire minds structure themselves around goals. I’m relatively certain that these are tied to our human selves, how we felt at the time of being turned or both. We very strongly care about fulfilling these goals. I might call it irrational if I didn’t feel it but it seems very logical from an insider’s point of view, soooo-”

Okay, so, based on Meredith's behaviour so far, and based on her story about how she got turned, it seems safe to say that Meredith's mind was structured around curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge.

The sad part is, in most circumstances Sanna would be completely on-board with this mindset. But it's hard to appreciate it when it's not only aimed at her, but aimed squarely at exactly all of the things she least wants to reveal about herself!

They're also the things Meredith most wants her to reveal! 

(Yes, Sanna knows! That is precisely Sanna's point!)

Things are a little bit awkward now as Meredith waits for Sana to either ask for more information or let her know it's her turn! If Meredith asks a questions and Sanna feels like it's rushed, she might stop answering! Should she have specified what her drive is? Or mentioned that they're so important to vampires that she almost died purely from lack of motivation after having learnt all she could about magic (and before she managed to reorient slightly towards anything that seemed remotely interesting, which might have, in turn, made her curiosity even more intense with Sanna)?

(Sanna may or may not be interested in that information, but she doesn't know what Meredith's thinking, so she can't help her decide whether to say it or not.)

"…It's your turn." Sanna assumed that would be obvious from her silence, but maybe… um… maybe Meredith's trying to let her keep taking the lead?

She is! And hopefully Sanna appreciates it because it’s hard!

“Do you know why it might be that you feel…”, flairs are so hard to put into words, ugh, “magically distinct from any other creatures I’ve met? Not in the basic level in which all creatures are different. More like… if everyone was colours you’d be a texture? Or beyond the visible spectrum? I don’t know how to say it but the thing is that you don’t feel ‘right’.”

That’s a very confusing description and will get her no good answer! Words are hard and vampires should have telepathy. 

…Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

Sanna thought she only stood out because Meredith hadn't seen a mermaid before, maybe even hadn't seen any supernatural creatures aside from other vampires.

But no. She's seen plenty of creatures, and Sanna stands out from all of them.

Fuck. FUCK.

And Sanna probably can't just posit that sea creatures in general must feel different, Meredith's probably seen at least a few or she wouldn't be asking this.

If Meredith was telling the truth earlier, it might be a good thing if she knows… But it also might mean Sanna will suddenly become The Most Interesting Possible Thing Forever in her eyes, and then she'll never get her off her back…

"…I have an idea. I don't know if I want to tell you the idea yet. I might be willing to tell you at some point in the future, but I can't make any promises.

"…You can ask something else if you want, since that wasn't really an answer."

(Also: Powerful immortal blood-drinking creatures with obsessive temperaments and dubious morals should definitely not have telepathy, that would be the worst!)

(Meredith doesn't agree but she's obviously biased!)

That's... actually a better reply than she expected? Sanna knows what she was asking about and, although she doesn't want to tell her now, she might eventually do so. Also, she gets the consolation prize of being allowed to ask another question!

She's going to ask something she thinks is simpler this time because she can only stand so many I-don't-want-to-answer that's, "How old are you? And how long can your species live for?"

Oh thank God, an anthropological question. (Wait, not 'anthropological'. Um… 'gorgonological'? Yeah, there you go. Except who the hell cares anyway)

"I'm 16. That's not quite as young for me as it is for a human, but it's still pretty young. Basically a young adult.

"I actually don't know how long we live. Pods can have at least five generations of adult mermaids in them, so we probably live to at least 60 or so, as a lower bound. But lots of mermaids ultimately die of things like predation or injury or disease, which might be pushing the numbers down."

Sanna's thought about this quite a lot, actually. She's never seen an old-looking mermaid, but maybe mermaids don't senesce. She's never heard of a mermaid dying of old age, either. (Not that she was in a great position to learn about these things. Kind of the opposite, really.) For all she knows, maybe mermaids are biologically immortal.

She doesn't like not knowing how much time she has left. She curses her younger self for not having asked, it's probably an easily available known fact back home. At least she has a lower bound…