"Oh. Well, all right. I haven't been trying to be charming?"

"I imagine not!"

"Just me being myself is charming enough for you?"

"Seems like it!"

"Well. Okay."

She smiles back.

"I should probably go to bed. It's kind of late, and I have work tomorrow. To your shock, I know."

Snicker. "I'll know something's wrong if I ever catch you taking another day off," he agrees. "Goodnight."

And he turns into an owl and wings away into the night.

"Goodnight," she says.

She goes to bed.

The night after, she's not out on her balcony at the designated meeting time. Just to prove that she can. That her schedule is not at the mercy of the vampire, that she doesn't need to be afraid of him and tiptoe around him in order to protect herself. That she can just... take a night off, and it'll be fine. Everything will not come crashing down and he will not break into her home in the middle of the night to bite her. She curls up in bed with a book and she slowly coaxes away her anxiety and does her best to have a night where she does not think about the vampire. It doesn't quite succeed, but she still manages a nice night that's largely unrelated to vampires.

Nothing comes crashing down and the vampire does not break into her home in the middle of the night to bite her.

He absolutely doesn't! Her home remains uninvaded.

Excellent.

It turns out to be a good thing that she got a nice night to herself to rest, because the following day is busy. Usually, Doctor Relgam is called on for singular patients, or occasionally for multiple members of the same family with the same affliction. It's woefully inefficient, to go to every single patient's house to personally treat them, and to have every physician do the same, but sick people aren't the best at moving to places. And on their own, they don't usually congregate in one place. This means Avethana's days will vary wildly; some days she's trailing after Relgam around half the city, exhausted and wanting nothing more than to go home to rest. Other days she barely leaves his office and spends most of the day doing paperwork and organizing everything that comes within her reach to stave off boredom.

This day is a break from the norm. Most of an estate's staff have come down with something, and so for once, there are a lot of sick people all located in one convenient location. It's this sort of thing where she really earns her paycheck. Relgam is brilliant and ultimately good at his job, but he isn't very good at, well. Having priorities, or keeping a lot of information straight, or staying organized. Fortunately for him, he has Avethana as his assistant, and she's pretty good at all of those things.

The trick of it is to keep him from getting distracted. It's not a matter of trying to get him to listen to her; he's not unwilling to, and in fact, he's appreciative of her competence and initiative. He's aware of the benefits having a competent assistant gets him, and he's not likely to fire her anytime soon, even if she did get bossy. However, it'd be disrespectful to lead him around like an overexcited puppy that's chasing after every stray smell, and patients that watch a physician get ordered around by his assistant would be less inclined to hire him. So instead, it's about streamlining everything. Keeping everything that he might need within easy reach, so he doesn't get tempted down tangents that'll waste everyone's time. Making sure that all of the things he's not very good at are kept away from him. If she hands him the next thing for him to do with no distracting complications that could lead him down a tangent, that'll just be that. There will be no tangent to warn him away from.

She efficiently gathers information from all sick patients of when they first grew ill, their symptoms, and how much the illness has progressed. She keeps track of which members of the staff are worst off and gently steers Relgam to them first. She keeps a list of the drugs and herbs they have on hand, and which things are needed and which things have been used, and quietly informs him when it might be wiser to switch to a different prescribed remedy. It's more work than usual, but it's not any more difficult than it usually is. She just has more to keep track of, more to do, but she's done it all before. It's long become second nature to put on a polite smile and deferential air while gently steering her boss with expert efficiency. All she has to do is all of the little things that he doesn't want to, and hand them to him when appropriate.

For an estate's staff, this is an unusually foreign bunch. There are several women with the white-blonde hair common in the northern regions of the main continent, and a handful more who speak Lothannic with noticeable accents.

The man of the house comes by around midafternoon to check on his people. He looks an ambiguous thirty or thirty-five, with a smooth youthful face, a grave confident bearing, and a touch of premature grey in his short brown hair. He keeps out of the way, watching doctor and assistant thoughtfully.

There are opinions she could form about a man that hires vulnerable women, but she's at work and therefore it's often inconvenient to have opinions about things. They seem like they're treated well, and they're not all pretty in a way that suggests he's getting something more out of hiring them than a workforce that has nowhere else to go. She'll choose to think the best of him, with the information she has. He's being charitable, surely. She has learned how to keep potential kindling away from her temper.

When he enters, she curtsies politely, then returns to her duties. Soon enough, they're just about done. She flits around, wrapping up all possible orders of business here; making sure that they're leaving enough cough syrup to handle the lingering sore throats and coughing, that she's recorded all information the doctor might need in the future, checking for anyone that might be sick but isn't displaying it overtly and heading it off before Doctor Relgam leaves, and then at last, retrieving the doctor's coat. He's in the habit of forgetting it.

Mr. Sialtas sees them out personally, thanking them for their time and congratulating them on their good work.

Dr. Relgam thanks him sincerely, Avethana curtsies politely again, and away they go.

She doesn't require another day off from sitting on the balcony. Here she is, on the balcony, at the appropriate meeting time. That night, then two nights after.

And here is an owl, and shortly afterward a vampire.

"Hello," she says pleasantly, closing her book.

"Hello! How have you been?"

"I've been all right. Earned my keep at work, but I usually do that. You?"

"Tinkered with some of the magic in my castle. Flew through a thunderstorm because I could."

"What's flying through a thunderstorm like?"

"Exciting!"

"I suppose that follows. And - what magic did you tinker with in your castle? I have no idea how vampire magic works, is it basically like being a witch except also you eat people?"

"Mm, we can do most of the same things as living people, the vampire magic that's vampires-only is mostly just eating people and shapeshifting. But we... come at it from a slightly different angle, I suppose? I can always tell dead magic from living the moment I touch it."

"Huh. Can you show me an example of dead magic? Now I'm curious."