Bella wasn't quite asleep yet, though she was getting there. She sits up, triangulates for the sound, squints out the window at the visitor.

There is a short haired, red headed woman hanging off of her window. It's hard to tell in the dark, but she looks like she's a vampire. What with the casual way she's hanging off the house. The probably-vampire gives a very awkward wave, with an even more apologetic smile. Before anything else, she opens the window a tiny crack, then leans down so her voice can carry through it.

"HisorrycanIcomein, I would like to make you queen of the vampire world!" she says, very quickly, slowing down as she goes when she realizes she's going just a bit too fast for a human. She thinks the first part was still intelligible, but that second part was definitely intelligible.

"...sounds great, what in the world does this have to do with hanging off the side of my house without making yourself known to the local vampires?"

The window gets opened and in slides a... huh, is she a vampire? Her skin doesn't look quite as pale, and her eyes are the wrong color. She still moves like one, though.

"The current mindreading overlords of the vampire world. They aren't immune, you are. It is very important that the Volturi do not know about me or any of my family until it is too late and they are ashes."

Bella has to flick her lamp on to make fine color discriminations but she does this. "And you are avoiding the notice of the locals how?"

"I have foresight, like your - uh, the dark haired pixie girl? We kinda sorta mutually block each other, but mine sooooorta beats hers. I don't know when she's going to notice the dark spot, can I tell you the cover story before they freak out?"

"I guess you can tell me."

"So I am a dhampir - half human, half vampire - and so it really is actually very important for me to tell you in particular that vampires with a penis can get humans with a womb pregnant. The pregnancy is unpleasantly survivable with venom, but it's, quote 'Not Great.' The sneakery is because I wanted to make sure you didn't need someone to rescue you out from the vampire that has mated to you. - To be clear I know you don't, though, you're fine. But, you know, it would be such a legit reason to break into your bedroom in the middle of the night while evading your future in-laws."

"I guess it would, if you had really remarkably specific incomplete information."

"Which I am pretending to have! And so that is our cover story, and yes you can say I said I have foresight, there will be no hiding it from pixie-girl, the thing you should avoid talking about is overthrowing the Volturi and my family's existence. I am to their knowledge a concerned dhampir citizen who doesn't want you to die in half-vampire pregnancy. Which is, to be clear, actually so incredibly deadly. Uh - pretend my mother died and I'm alone, I am not and my mother is vamping it up just fine, but, you know, cover story that doesn't have your in-laws hunting for the other vampires that don't eat people to make friends."

"You're not worried they're going to hunt down your ostensibly single people-eating dad and try to save you?"

"He can be dead too. I have foresight, I bet I can - no, I really can't, but we can pretend I could have. Just a single murderous future seeing concerned citizen, that's me."

"Gotcha. And your name, or you were far too mysterious to give one?"

"That's fine. Aurene. Hi."

"Hi. I assume you already creepily know who I am."

"Ehhhhhh my thing is more, like, large scale? I saw 'by the decree of Empress Isabella Marie Cullen' but I don't, like, know your current last name."

"Oh. I go by Bella, which seems more relevant. What was I decreeing?"

"'Consumption of human blood is now illegal,' with alternatives listed. This will go over better than this implies - Mum cracked synth-blood ages ago, the hard part was making it easily manufacturable, she spent the last thirty years on that, but: we're there too. Synth-blood exists and it is superior to human blood on a thirst-quenching axis and can totally be mass produced. My mum's great."

"- holy shit, that's very important!"

"It is so important! We can't tell anyone about it, because the Volturi are possessive of being in charge and 'I manufacture the better blood alternative' infringes on their turf! It's awful! Please rule the world instead!"

"I would love to but I don't have a plan to perform a coup!"

"Good news! We do! It's the after that's hard, because, well, none of us really want to rule the world?"

"- okay, sure, I approve of the division of labor where someone else does a coup and appoints me empress of the vampire shadow government, sounds neat. Inconveniently I'm not a vampire yet."

"Yeah, it's not going to be literally tomorrow. Please become a vampire first. Just, I had a brief flash of a potential future with you as empress of the vampire world, and I basically have been future sight save scumming to make that happen since. I noticed you like, a week ago, kinda important to tell you sooner rather than later what's up."

"I think I would still have appreciated this on shorter notice. What do I need to do to not get in your way?"

"Biggest potential problem is the local werewolf population - I can see them better than pixie-girl but ho boy is that volatile, it can go so, so well or it can go so, so poorly, and I don't entirely know which way it'll flip. Probably best to leave them out entirely and wake them up after coup is complete. Otherwise please keep your foresight witch pointed at not-Volturi as best as you can, and we need a way to keep in contact with each other."

"Werewolf population! Got it. Do phone calls not work?"

"No, they do, but they can be overheard when you're human and email miiiiiiiiaaaughhhhh," she stumbles as if she's on a ship that just got hit with a giant wave. "-be better for depth - foresight witch is looking, please call your in-laws and let them know you're fine -"

She darts forward, grabs one of Bella's empty notebooks and pencils, and writes down a phone number and an email address. Then, quick as can be, she flashes back to the window and promptly vomits out of it.

"- spinning...." she murmurs, coughing up the rest of her, uh, blood dinner?

Bella preemptively holds her nose. "Okay, I'll email you - aren't the vampires going to smell that next time they're near my house -"

"Should be icky by the time they come by, 's animal anyway," she says, a little hoarsely. "They'll know I was here, just not the - empress and family thing - think I told you everything important? E-mail me questions and whatever, I'm gonna go before your mate shows up and makes this complicated."

"...okay. Thank you."

"Mmhmm bye!"

Out of the house she hops, and into the woods she runs. She leaves the window open as she goes.

Bella now has a phone number, an e-mail address, and some serious explaining to do to the Cullens.

She can probably get by by saying things like "apparently half-vampires exist" in a suitably incredulous tone.

Hi Aurene, It's Bella

Hi Bella!

We're currently setting up factories for the synth-blood manufacture - Mum's email is YvetteOrland@hotmail.com, if you want to ask her about manufacturing stuff - we've already put one by Toronto, under Ireland and nearish to St. Petersburg, feel free to make location requests.

Depends how the stuff ships, but I can ask her that kind of thing. You're very sure I should plan not to have a half-vampire kid?

How well does synthblood ship? What inputs does it take?

Uhhhhhh you can if you want? IDK it's hard to see you like 80% of the time. It sucks a bunch to gestate but we have cheat codes for how to keep you alive, and it only takes a month. Dhampirs grow super fast, adulthood in seven years, but I do not expect us to take that long for coup purposes.

Think mum's next project is cracking artificial womb thing so vampires can have kiddos?

Your Future Imperial Majesty, as recommended to me by my daughter,

Synth-blood is very stable within a temperature range of 2°C to 4°C (35°F to 39°F) with a tested stable shelf life of seventeen years and counting in these conditions. It should not be frozen, and is most vulnerable to introduction of outside bacteria, but is not structurally vulnerable per se to temperatures below 40°C (104°F) We also have not started seriously on distribution methods yet, in favor of building up a sufficient backlog. Synth-blood's easier to transport and store than insulin, though, so the infrastructure is theoretically available through ordinary medical distribution. I hear you have a doctor. :)

So, the inputs are approximately 'organic matter;' synth-blood is made as a byproduct of a waterborne fungus that gets its food thrown into the vats. Currently we source food for the fungus from farming and slaughterhouse byproducts, so as to be cheap and easy to source, but this is somewhat flexible. Maintenance of the vats is harder and will require on-site management - I can handle it for everything for now, and will indefinitely, but I would appreciate Imperial Staffing Services to take over when possible in the future. It's just kind of boring, and the opportunity cost for me in particular is not great.

Looking forward to not having to deal with living in paranoid secrecy from the megalomaniacal rulers of the vampire world,

Yvette Orland.

I'm certainly not in a hurry. I can have my ovaries removed first or something.

I'll put it on the to-do list! Thank you very much for your innovation. How's the palatability?

K!

Sorry, forgot to mention - you're going to have to share being queen of just-Ireland-in-particular. It has a vampire queen already, and we've made a coup deal with her. She's cool though, shouldn't be a problem, already switched her coven to synth-blood. She's why the factory in Ireland. It's fine to have personal coven synth-blood factories as long as it's not going to get out the fun police.

You're welcome!

The latest version is really quite good! It is reliably more palatable than most kinds of animal blood, with some accounting for taste, but I am told it does not quite live up to human blood standards. What it does better is dull the throat pain of thirst, along with the improved cognitive effects correlated with animal blood. I have a couple less loved flavors that can fairly easily be rolled out, but the main one is fairly solid. I could not quite bribe all immoral vampires in the world to stop with the murder with just it, but I like to think that I have come damn close.

Should I talk to her? Is she on board with appointing me vampire queen?

This still has to be secret from my own personal vampires for coup reasons and they can't have any?

Probably? And afaict, yes. She doesn't want to rule the world, either. It's very big, you see.

It is, but just the vampires is much smaller!

I guess? But Siobhan (vampire queen of Ireland) literally just wants her island, not all the fuss of handling hundreds of immortal, superpowered vampires whose brains say violence is the first answer to all questions. We're not complaining that you want it instead!

No, I'm perfectly happy to set up something for your vampires somewhere quiet. The plan to rollout to cover the world's vampire population should absolutely stay secret from them, though, and I'd prefer if the Volturi were not aware that synthetic blood is available at all. We'd like to continue not attracting their attention.

We should avoid connecting me with my daughter, though, which is complicated by your mind reader I believe?

Only if you go in person. If it's shelf stable you could drop off a bunch with their pals in Denali.

True! We can dead drop as much as you'd like, that's not hard. I was thinking in terms of handing a factory over to your doctor to make it yourselves, but I suppose it's much simpler to just say I'm a witch who can produce it and is giving it away.

Are you? Does this rely on witchcraft?

Yes, and not anymore. Now that the fungi exists and reproduces perfectly well on its own, witchcraft is not required for making or maintaining it. It was necessary for inventing it, though. You can casually gloss my witchcraft as something biology based; I'll leave out the specifics of it, but it's not inaccurate.

Relatedly, whenever you turn, I can make that less hellish. There's obviously a tradeoff there, with your mind reading mate, and I'd rather the specifics of my witchcraft not get out before everything is settled, but I feel that these problems can be overcome with careful logistics. The trouble of figuring it out is worth sparing you the full pain of turning. Also I probably shouldn't piss off the future Imperial Majesty by not being at least a little bit nice to you.

Oh, before I forget: here's a list of locations where we've stashed small samples of the synth-blood fungus, in case the worst happens. If I die horribly because of my decisions, I don't particularly want my life's work to go unused. I expect figuring out how to get synth-blood from it should be fairly straightforward with vampirism, stubbornness, and appropriate medical training.

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.

Yeah. Sorry, I'm fretting, and vampiric speed of thought and action is not always to my uncomplicated benefit. This change was a little abrupt, I'm still adjusting.

Unrelatedly, I have an idea. I mentioned I was not proprietary of synth-blood; quite the opposite, it's more important that it gets out. It'd be nice if everyone knew I kind of saved the world with magic and science, but the important thing is the world being saved. The primary barrier is that my connection to my daughter is inconvenient for rollout for the vampiric populace reasons. Dr. Carlisle Cullen is several centuries old, specialized in medicine, and I am told also values human life. Can we have him pretend to have done it? It wouldn't hold up to Aro himself, but it's very plausible for all other vampires, and if only Dr. Cullen is aware that he didn't create it, well. I think that would hide things quite neatly.

I think probably his family would be aware that he did not spend a lot of time unaccounted for creating and using a secret lab, and also my boyfriend is frequently within a mile of him.

The mindreading is really quite inconvenient.

But yes, fair enough. I suppose I will have to continue to attempt to be patient about my glorious creation shocking the vampire world.

In the long run I imagine it can go in the history books just as it happened.

I am not really concerned about fame? I am concerned about the people that will die waiting for my vampiric equivalent of a vaccine to get distributed. The Cullens themselves are not dangers, and the synth-blood would entirely be for their comfort. It's the vampires who would uncomplicatedly switch to a less murderous alternative, if one was only available to them.

How goes prepping a shipment for the Denali coven?

We've decided on a dead drop location near Anchorage; it'll still be a few days to stock properly. Does the Denali coven have an address, as the Cullens do? I could mail a refrigerated sample with instructions on where to find it.

I'll find out.

Will send a package and an email when the location's set up.