"I'll get that for you. Sides or appetizers?"

"No thanks, just the buffet."

"Great. Thank you for visiting Ordell's Barbeque and enjoy all-you-can-eat!"

Terry makes for the buffet area and starts loading his plate with things, making suggestions. "If quality even makes much of a difference compared to what you usually eat."

She follows.

"From a purely physicalist standpoint, vankire diet makes absolutely no sense, there must be some magic going on here, otherwise I'd be able to just alter my biology enough to get my energy off food, or something."

"I agree. Though magical biologies are not unprecedented."

"Oh vankire biology is definitely magical, it's just—magical in some pretty inconvenient ways."

"What ways other than the whole wired-to-hunt thing?"

"Well, if you're including the taste, unending thirst, and need for blood, I suppose 'wired-to-hunt' covers it. Some people might object to being unable to sleep or sparkling. Oh, and being unable to reproduce normally, too."

"Not relevant to me except in a maybe someday sense but. Can male vankires have children?"

"Yeah, with female humans. Pregnancy lasts a month if carried to term and the mother dies unless she's turned in time, we usually perform a C-section at three weeks and then turn her, it's less risky that way. Hybrids can reproduce with vankires, too."

"Would you be able to sufficiently imitate a hybrid or human, you think? Staying one gender that long nonwithstanding."

"I'm wary of trying to go that far because there were lots of neurological changes and I actually do still use my brain to think, don't wanna poke there too much."

He's done gathering food and heads back to the table. Their water is waiting. "So no children with you as a parent probably, which means if I turn and become forever monogamously yours no children at all."

"Well, I'm not sure. I'd have to try at any rate. And, is surrogate parenting not a thing here?"

"Never heard of it do tell." He tucks in. "Oooh, they used the good kind of chicken today."

"Let's see, do you guys know about cells?"

"Something something biology. Germs don't have them they are them, I'm not a medical student."

"Okay, pretty much everything that's alive—at least where I'm from, I'm guessing humans are like that, too—is made up of cells..." She launches an explanation of nuclei and DNA and gametes and eventually: "So if you get an egg from one parent and one sperm from another and put them inside another person they can bring those two people's child to term."

"So even if you can't carry a child you could probably produce an egg cell. So if I turn children are not forever impossible just a lot of hassle."

"Precisely, yes." Pause. "I am not sure what would happen if both egg and sperm were vankire ones, I'm pretty sure there have been no vankire eggs ever. Children who are turned into vankires never grow up, though."

"Let's not experiment."

"Let's not," she agrees. "I can probably generate eggs from when I was human. Maybe I could even generate hybrid ones if we'd like our kids to be more vankire than human or vice-versa."

"Tell me more about the hybrids?"

"Well, so far there haven't been many, the Empress only took over a few years ago, but the Princess is a half-vankire and those are immortal, grow very fast, have a heartbeat—actually run hotter than regular humans—have a sleep schedule that's basically 'they will be asleep between this time and that time literally no matter what,' have overall less good senses and enhancements than vankires. Can't mate, the males have venom and can turn humans but not the females, are much more durable than just half-way between humans and vankires."

"I mean, that sounds like it's probably a better deal than the full turning treatment - sleep thing could be awkward. Do they still have the hunting thing?"

"Less, and they can eat human food, though it tastes bad and they prefer blood. And since they're born not turned they can be taught how to deal with the instincts from birth. And I personally like not needing to sleep, and it must make it much easier for vankire parents."

"If we wanted them more human than not I'd need to still be human at the time. And this is a decades-away-probably-thing, I'm not sure I want to wait until I'm a middle aged wrinkly guy to turn if I'm going to do it at all."