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[ She collects the box from him, keeping it carefully clasped between her hands, and then just as wordlessly lets the door close behind them, its own heavy weight sufficient enough to keep some of the beginning fall chill out — although she shows no signs of being affected by it, her pale complexion not even brandishing the subtlest flush of color. ]

As you say, there has been so much to navigate lately. I was not among the kidnapped, but others were, and I did accompany a small group who were part of the larger rescue efforts.

[ With a hand, she gestures toward the sitting room, where he is more than welcome to make himself comfortable on nearly any piece of furniture he chooses. ]

Can I make you a drink? It will be a moment for tea, unless you'd care for anything stronger. [ Whatever he selects, it may be evident that he is the only one she serves, and she takes a pause to set the box down on the table closest to the seat he selects for himself, opening the lid to admire its contents. ] Try one, won't you? I insist.

[ The small signs add up all at once, even if Kurt can't quite draw the correct conclusion. For as much as he's dealt with the strange, perhaps the full breadth of it, the shear amount of possibility, makes such pinpointing difficult. There's the paleness of her, though, where and when he has not seen her, the offer to singularly make him a drink, the insistence just spoken...

His eyes shift from Vanessa to the box and back, careful concern dawning. ]

Vanessa... What's happened?

[ It had been her intention to wait a bit longer before unveiling the truth to him, and part of her offer in readying him a drink had been a means of rendering him in a position better-equipped to handle the news — but she should have known his perceptiveness would have picked up on the signs of her change long before then.

The fact that she had not included herself in partaking of either food or drink was more suspicious, she now realizes, and after a long moment, she shifts to assume a seat on one of the sofas, smoothing a hand over the drape of her skirt over her knees. ]

There is a reason I was scarce for several weeks prior to the incident that befell several of our fellow LIERs, and it was not due to an illness.

[ Now, faced with the prospect of honesty, she decides there is no better avenue than simply coming out with it. ] As of about a month now, I am no longer human, no longer mortal, but vampire.

…Ah.

[ Kurt honestly isn't sure what to do with that. He does note to himself almost instantly, though, that his sense of normalcy is heavily off-balance. The fact is obviously a heavy one, even if she doesn't seem despairing of it, but the vampirism he's encountered has ranged so widely and has not always been so grim or so permanent.

Her symptoms, though... Perhaps even her era, somehow... Classical rules, maybe, however real that may be. Kurt swallows and slips from his seat, a moment of inhuman movement on all fours, to crouch at her feet and reach for her hands. ]

Did you choose it?

[ Let there be that, at least. ]

[ She doesn't expect him to have any firm opinion about it immediately — in fact, she'd prefer he didn't, that he take time to truly weigh over his feelings on the truth of the matter before ultimately reaching a conclusion one way or another.

Beyond that, however, she's desperate not to do or say anything that could drive him to leave; whatever may have changed on her side, she doesn't want it to be strong enough to threaten the circumstances of their friendship, not with someone she holds so personally dear. ]

Yes. [ That she is confident in, but she's less prepared for him to slip from his seat and make his way to her, taking her hands in his own; she squeezes them reflexively, grateful for the tether he's established. ]

The alternative was... a more limited existence, and one that would not last should I ever return to my own world. [ It's as close as she's ever come to admitting another truth to him — the fact that she'd come here at the moment of her death, and has always known what would await her. But she's considered the possibility that returning different could change her fate, if she ever does return at all. ]

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