Noted, thanks!

I find it hard to imagine him volunteering to go away while I'm turning without at least some substantial chunk of an explanation.

I'll sever the nerves sending pain from the rest of your body to your brain, and put them back just before you're done. This will not completely deaden the pain of turning - I'd be focusing on the nerves in the spine, not going through to find and zap everything - but it will help a lot.

I have yet to do this procedure on an individual turning, so I cannot promise how well it would hold without my personal babysitting, and it would not completely spare you from the pain, but I sincerely believe it will help. .... Aurene confirms that you will thank me for it, apparently.

Well, that's a pretty strong recommendation, but if it requires any maintenance, and maybe even if it's one-and-done at the start and end, getting my boyfriend out of the way will be tough.

Yeah. Sorry. I can be in and out very quickly, and think very medically based thoughts that might cover any secrets of motherhood and coup plans, but, well. I'm not sure I can manage to avoid thinking anything about my entire life history as a vampire.

As such, I will defer to your expertise on these matters, Your Imperial Majesty.

His witchcraft is incredibly inconvenient. I'll keep this in mind and see if I can come up with something; it's not an immediate concern as far as I know.

Yeah. We've removed the immediate danger to your person, so you should hopefully be able to avoid any emergency turning, especially with two seers watching out for you. Let me know how you want to handle it, though.

Is having two of those good, if they bounce off each other?

I think they have different blind spots? Aurene said the tracker vampire was going to throw off your seer somehow, which was how she could see you. So I think so, my daughter's ability to keep her lunch down notwithstanding?

The who

?

There was going to be a tracker vampire that was going to cause you trouble-of-some-kind. He is dead now.

Somehow I think that failed to come up.

Oh.

One moment, please.

There's a brief pause, then:

Mum says I should say sorry for killing in your name without your permission. Sorry I had some murderous vampires killed to keep you from being kidnapped without giving you a heads up or something. They had it coming, though, and they were all super, super doomed. They'd all be dead within the year no matter what! We just sped it up a bit.

But yeah, sorry, extenuating circumstances, I was in a time crunch, and dodging pixie seer. I will endeavor to do better in the future.

People die for worse reasons all the time. Though I'm sort of suspicious about "no matter what"; I'd believe "under any sane set of tradeoffs"?

No, I mean, they'd have literally all gotten themselves dead within the year. Without my involvement at all. This way they didn't take anyone else out with them, and did not reveal your existence to the Volturi in their trip off that cliff. Or leave that lady in Alaska eternally heartbroken! It was gonna suck no matter what!

"Without your involvement" is not the same thing as "no matter what". I'm not saying you should have taken it upon yourselves to save them, I'm just guessing you maybe could have if you'd felt like it.

I actually think he would've gotten stuck on me instead of you if I'd tried negotiating? As his perfect prey subject thing. Which would also get him and his entire coven dead.

Idk it is just my professional future seeing opinion that those people did not have enough self preservation or pattern recognition to make it through the next decade, even if I tried very hard.

Anyway, thanks for preventing my kidnapping.

I think you would have been okay, but you're welcome! It would have been a bad week.

I apologize on behalf of the chaos gremlin I brought into this world.

She nominated me for empress of the world, I will put up with a lot after that.

I love her dearly, and am unspeakably proud of her and who she's grown up to be, but we did kind of raise her in the woods.

When was this, how old are you lot?

Aurene was born June 19, 1931; she's our youngest. I was turned at the same time, at 22, for obvious reasons, so I'm almost 100 if you count my human years. Our oldest is around 350. The date of his birth and turning are both a bit up in the air. So we were all turned before, or just at the beginning of, humanity's population expansion.

I and Aurene are the only ones fortunate enough to have a perfect record in regards to drinking human blood. I say 'fortunate' because I quite strongly feel that the major issue causing vampires to fling themselves into wanton slaughter is social and cultural. Human blood makes vampires more instinctual and violent, and far less social, and the typical turning etiquette is to have humans available immediately upon completion of a newborn's turning. The abrupt violent shift between lifestates, with no ties between them, nor any warning of what to expect, having just experienced the worst pain they will ever feel in their lives, and waking up to realize that they've killed people... Frankly, I think it's something of a trauma response that's putting weight on vampiric instincts to cause most of the core issue. From there, it's inertia, combined with having no better options.

I bring this up because - well, I am talking to the Future Imperial Majesty, potential ruler of the vampire world. I suppose I am trying to steer your reign a little bit; it's very sudden for me to not be expecting to have to take over the world and rule it more personally, much as I absolutely don't mind giving it up. You're going to have to kill a lot of vampires, and mostly they will deserve it. Just, please try to stay empathetic towards them, even as the circumstances of your station force your hand. Humans need to stop being treated as walking juice containers, for primarily the humans' sake, but also the vampires. Almost all vampires are themselves victims of a great wrong, and a species change they had little to no control over.

Of course, some of them are still just assholes that choose to be assholes, and everyone is still ultimately responsible for their choices, but, well. I am almost a hundred, you know. I'm allowed to ramble as if I were a grandmother.

I am absolutely cognizant of the fact that most humans don't do any murders at all and vampires overwhelmingly do and some thing or set of things is unquestionably happening there which very few vampires chose to begin with, yes.