Negative? "I'm not sure what you're asking for, sweetheart. Should I go catch a bird and you could try to show me what you mean?"

She gives an annoyed little Hsss sound, and then scrunches her eyes shut and—

He sees an artful representation of a little dhampir baby leaping at (or.... being thrown at?) a bird, catching it mid-air, being caught by a series of shifting figures, mostly Blair, and then eating her bird.

"Birds!" she repeats, clearly annoyed with his lack of understanding.

"Did Blair throw you up in the air to catch birds."

"Ee!" she agrees, bouncing in his arms.

"Blair Lowell what the hell."

"What?" calls Blair.

Aurene looks up at her father with big blue-green eyes, and then:

Okay, now, this bite is definitely petulant.

"Why would you throw my daughter up in the air to catch birds! She's a newborn!!!"

He ignores the bite—she doesn't seem to have any venom so it's really not a big deal.

"She's a newborn half-vampire! And we worked our way up to that, and I caught her every time. You haven't seen her try to escape!"

Hisssssss. "Maybe if you held onto her she wouldn't try to escape!!!!"

"Oh, that's not enough to stop escape attempts."

"Mrh!" says the newborn, releasing the bite to switch tactics and go for biting off a thumb, already wriggling to get free.

"No, sweetheart, don't bite daddy's thumb off, he needs it to hold things," he says, keeping said thumb out of reach. "...were the birds your idea, princess?"

Nope she is not answering that it is temper tantrum time. Would he like screaming with a side of biting, or biting with a side of screaming? He gets the crying either way.

"Of course they were," he sighs, rocking her back and forth. "Princess, give daddy some time to get used to you, okay? I'm not... I guess... against the idea of birds here, it was just surprising is all."

Turns out that half vampire babies can reach an astonishingly annoying level of super high pitched. In screaming. Also: she still bites. And she still wants out of his arms. She will do so much wiggling and biting to make this happen.

"Sweetheart this is not the way to get what you want," he says, now holding her at arm's length with both hands. Wiggly and bitey or no she is still only half vampire and presumably can't... bend... enough to cause that much damage.

(It is dawning on him that this is, in fact, his and Yvette's daughter. They... may not be super calibrated to that.)

Hssssssss! Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Squirm squirm squirm wriggle wriggle snap snap hsssss. Nothing really works, and she tries many things. She is actually just outclassed by an adult full vampire.

She finds this very frustrating, and lets out a final (terrible, high pitched) scream, and now she's just crying despondently, look at her, she's so sad.

"Honey, look, we can do the birds thing, okay? I just need you to calm down a bit first. I'm sorry I didn't trust you and uncle Blair, daddy is just very new at all of this and scared of hurting you." Can he hold her close again or will she immediately try to bite his extremities off again?

She will absolutely immediately try to bite off his extremities again, yep. She does not seem super persuadable by this 'logic' thing he's trying.

Okay what happens if he sets her down.

Aurene is briefly stunned to have actually been put down, and there is a noticeable pause as she tries to figure out what she wants to do. This was not among her expected outcomes, apparently.

Okay, she's good now! Her balance is terrible but she's just fine at launching herself, and is very very fast. Apparently she would like to go hang out on top of the kitchen cupboards. The kitchen cupboards are more than a little damaged from this experience.

James winces a bit—Yvette will not be happy—but okay that's still not the worst. He stays nearby, ready to catch or stop her if he needs to.

She pokes her head over and hisses at him, then gets to prying her tiny infant fingers into the top of the cupboards to make a hole down into them. Likely to hide, and if she's anything like her mother, probably pout.

"Would you rather I open the door to the cupboard instead? That would probably be faster."