Snuggles are nice. She is glad she made this executive decision.

"So you're... a hundred and fifty? Or something?"

"I was twenty-six when I was turned one hundred and thirty-nine years ago."

She does some quick math in her head.

"So you're a hundred and sixty-five, and you were turned, ah... in 1791? Are you American, were you there for when America ceased to be a set of British colonies?"

He nods. "I was."

"... Huh. If I were a historian I'd probably have some kind of questions for you, but I am not." Snuggle. "What have you been doing with your hundred and change years of immortal life?"

Snuggle snuggle. "Mostly traveling. I visited... pretty much everywhere. I mentioned Antarctica, but I've been to every continent and saw many places—I swam down into a number of sea trenches, you would not believe how deep some of them go—I visited volcanoes, although those I prefer to stay a safer distance from..."

She smiles and hums a confirmation, a little bit charmed.

"Good. Do not jump into a volcano, James."

"I will do my utmost to avoid that, ma'am."

"Good."

... Something occurs to her.

"How often do you, um. Eat?"

"...once every two to four weeks."

He has been a vampire for one hundred and thirty-nine years.

Eating people once every two to four weeks.

"Oh," she says.

He doesn't say anything.

For a little while, she doesn't, either.

"I don't want to eat people," she murmurs. "Even terrible ones. Because what if I'm wrong? What if even though they're terrible, their loss is a, a net negative for the world? I don't want to play judge and executioner, and I don't want to be forced to do it by my diet, either. I don't... want to be a thing that has to kill people to live."

"I—I can live on animals. I will only eat animals from now on, and, and if it works then, then you'll know?"

"Okay," she agrees. She sounds upset again. At least she has snuggles. "I'm sorry. I don't want to use the, the mind control to twist your arm to suit my whims."

"It's not the mind control. I want you to not be unhappy, and I care about your happiness more than about human blood."

"... You described it as 'better than sex.'"

"Yeah."

"I—okay." Snuggle. "Okay, thank you, James."

He nods into her hair.

"Do you mind if I think out loud in regards to turning at you? I don't want to scare you or make you think about unpleasant things, but it... helps to think out loud at someone, and I. Don't really have anyone else."

"I don't mind," he says gently.

"Okay." Snuggle. "So the part that makes me most unwilling to turn is killing people, but I mentioned that already. Uh—other parts that bother me... I find the mate mind control very disturbing, but it's less scary to, uh, match you? If I'm already in love with you when I turn, it wouldn't be much of a downside. The scary part of that is the potential for the unknown, of being stuck on some random person I don't know, and that's demonstrably not going to be happening in this case. Sterility..." she trails off. "That one bothers me. More for the, the implied loss of potential future choices than a desire to eventually have children."

He nods into her hair again. "I had never really considered the possibility before, so I did not know to miss it."

"Mm. If I turn, it will be because I already love you, and because I expect to not kill people. If I love you, then I don't expect to want to bear someone else's child, and you're already sterile. I suppose those two problems solve each other, in a strange sort of way. If we ever want children we could adopt? ... If we could possibly hide the existence of vampires from a human child, anyway, which. I suppose would be difficult."