"Excellent! I visited the Denali and then my sister in England; she was very understanding and did not try to set me on fire even once." He smiles. "And you, Esme?"
"We've been settling in here, and I'm waiting on a shipment of some marble before I can fix up the fireplace but everything else on the house is well underway, and I could recommend you the loveliest books..." She ushers him in. "Carlisle will be home in a few hours, Edward in four or five - he's hunting."
"This house has got such a different style from the last one. I like it though, cute in a different way. More regal, though I don't really know houses. What are your plans for it?"
So adorable! Blair thinks that listening to Esme describing plans for the house is an excellent use of his time. He does so with no regrets. Carlisle and Edward can take their time, Blair adores listening to people talk about things they love.
Carlisle and Edward wind up coming home at about the same time; apparently there was good eating nearer by than Esme's estimate. They are also pleased to see Blair. Well, more Carlisle than Edward.
Then he tells them about his sister, clarifying that he is aware of the Volturi's policy and is keeping the whole thing very quiet and she's not going to mention it to anyone else. Nor is she going to attempt to burn him at the stake, think he's a monster, or planning to pretend that her brother is dead. In fact, after getting the whole story and the benefits and downsides of vampirism she would like to know more about the problem with vampires not being able to have kids, and wondering if a medical solution to that problem (possibly when the patient is still human) is possible. Because she would like to become a vampire, but finds some parts of vampirism... objectionable.
The bit about vampire bodies not changing does make it seem rather absolute, yes. Hm. Carlisle's the doctor, can he think of any potential alternate solutions to this?
Are there any parts that are essential to the child making process that can be removed, and kept from rotting away? They potentially have eternity, they don't need to know how to make a child from it now, but if they can leave it open for themselves later, well, that's nearly the ideal.
Well, Carlisle knows his anatomy, and there's plenty he could theoretically remove. It would be major abdominal surgery, but nothing compared to turning. And, well, they might preserve in the same way any meat might, freezing - they'd have to get a freezer and hope it lasted as long as it takes medical science to catch up - there's various methods of pickling, although considering how inimical the substances are to human biology in live subjects... then again, cold isn't so good for them either...
...
Maybe Blair can find someone that could help with this line of thinking.
Turns out: his power is pretty terrible at finding him people with specific skill-sets. He finds two people that habitually store fruit preservatives, one that preserves leaves in books, and one taxidermist before he manages to wrestle his power into maybe aiming in a medical direction.
Funerary workers. Hospice workers. A dentist that thinks it is really important to preserve your teeth by brushing them.
Oh, come on. People that like being on the cutting edge of preservation? Is that a character trait?
It is not a character trait.
He can find experts in the medical field, that's not hard, but he's having trouble with specifics beyond that, and this is kind of an inexplicable problem to explain, now isn't it? 'Hey so my sister would like to preserve the ability to have kids for in the future even though she will soon lose the ability to have them herself'? Ugh. He'd get told that she should just have kids now, it is Her Responsibility.
After a lot of searching he returns to Carlisle and pronounces that, well. He didn't find anything of use. Unless Carlisle would like a good dentist.
Well. Did Carlisle make any progress while he was beating his head against the proverbial wall trying to solve this with his power?
(He really needs to see if there's a way to refine his power, it feels very - inexact. Sort of like being out of shape, a concept he vaguely remembers that he loathed while he was human and worked to correct.)
Well, that depends, can they just freeze the whole reproductive organ-thing (he has not looked up anatomy in the meantime, he sort of regrets this decision) and then use that later?
The odds are good that being an early adopter here would result in irreparable freezing damage to delicate organs, and furthermore any children she wanted to have with them, even if they survived intact, would have to incubate in someone else. Carlisle's willing to try it, but on the whole it doesn't look promising.
He'll leave the decision to her, but - yeah, not very promising. Is it likely to have any large leaps in science in the next few years?
Right, next relevant topic: ways to reduce the pain of turning.
Carlisle didn't have the luxury of waiting either time he's turned a person, but in this case he's happy to mix strong painkillers and see if any of them help. A vampire will be at no risk of addiction to drugs that prey on humans, and turning itself is certainly proof against side effects usually mitigated by using only single substances and limiting dosage.