".... You're a very good big brother and I love and cherish you," admits Yvette softly, who then goes and hugs him. "Sorry for uh. Making life complicated?"

"No, you're not," replies Blair cheerfully, hugging her back. It is a much nicer version than the last time he said it.

"We'll be fine. There's a whole ocean between us and the Volturi and I hear they don't really leave so much."

"Eh. It's less about the ocean and more about how we have foresight, tracking, and transmutation for whatever arbitrary material objects we want. If we can't avoid attention with those combined, we are not trying hard enough."

Yvette snorts, and releases her brother from hugs so she can turn to her husband, and cross her arms and raise her eyebrows.

"Also, never, ever say that again, James. 'We'll be fine' is just asking for the narrative to just get turned on its head, don't you read."

"Or have pattern recognition. I'm sure something along the lines of 'it'll be fine' was how Auri happened."

"No, that was a bit more along the lines of—"

"—Never tell me."

Yvette giggles.

James laughs and hugs his wife.

"Fine, fine, no tempting fate."

Hug!

"Thank you, dear. This is for your own good."

Nope no getting sappy on his watch. He is interrupting.

"So, I vote we stick around here until Yvette's good around humans, pick a new and less populated place to move to, and then probably burn the house down before we go. Tiny little handprints in things is suspicious, and all."

"Sounds like a good plan to me."

"You came up with that plan way too quickly."

"What can I say, I like not leaving suspicious trails of evidence behind."

He doesn't repeat "it will be fine", but he does think it.

It is, at least for the next few days. Aurene continues to be out like a light at around 8PM every day, and continues to resume her little gremlin activities early in the morning. Her parents take their time to be properly mated full vampires when she's asleep, and Blair takes that time to be as far away from them as he possibly can during those times. Daytime is then dedicated to playing with Aurene, fixing the house up, fiddling with their witchcraft (in the case of Blair and Yvette), and the occasional sparring match.

James is... kind of terrifying in combat. Even just sparring, his self-confidence when Yvette had him pinned down when she turned was entirely earned, it is very clear he could in fact have dealt with her if he needed to (which he doesn't, not now, her preternatural self-control holds). He teaches the two of them, anyway; Yvette still needs a while to get used to her superstrength, her eyes are still intensely crimson from being a newborn and her enhanced newborn strength comes with that, but even a lot of introspection and attention does not really overcome James's years of experience and practice. Hands-on, too; he explains he has once had to help deal with a newborn army in Mexico, and since then he has also met with many teachers around the world, including the sole (well, plus her mate) vampire inhabitant of Ireland who from his tone is his hero ("She could singlehandedly take on a full coven of vampires. She has. She's keeping the entire island for herself on that alone.").

Still, there's... something. There's something else, something that doesn't quite translate. Not to Blair, anyway, there's something missing in this picture.

".... Hey, James," says Blair thoughtfully, while Yvette has Aurene. "I want to test something."

"Witchcraft stuff?" he guesses, walking over to his brother-in-law.

"Yeah," he agrees blandly. "Close your eyes, then run a mile in that direction," he points off into the secluded woods, "and then turn around and come back. Eyes still closed. It's fine if you break some things, yeah, we're in the middle of nowhere."

"...okay," he says, and does that.

He does not break any things.

"So, have you been that route before?" he wonders, when James comes back. "Have it all memorized?"

"Uh, I don't think so? I mean I have probably been around this place enough times I could reconstruct the entire route in my head if I tried..."

"Did you, though? Try?"

"...no, are you trying to turn tracking into something else here, what does this have to do with your power...?"