(Though Aurene does at one point want to stop being carried and instead launch herself between trees like some terrifying superspeedy monkey. Her parents, rather predictably, indulge her.)

Small person is CONFUSING and UPSETTING and he is not sure why and the only thing worse than having feelings is having unidentified feelings. Which sucks.

He does not like this, so instead he will remember he now has two (!!!!!!!!) extremely important and amazing and great and hot people and he can just keep thinking about that and not have any confusion or other feelings there, why doesn't he.

Yvette has been a taskmaster for more than just Aurene, and by now she's cajoled James into using his witchcraft to do all sorts of neat things.

Like, say, read lips by knowing how the lips themselves move.

'Are you as concerned about him as I am?' she mouths, when Alexei isn't looking. 'Because I'm very concerned.'

Unfortunately he can't respond in as much nuance. They've worked out signs he can use for simple replies or requests, including ones that need to not look like signs at all in case of hostile actors around.

You know, just in case.

And Alexei is not hostile but, yeah.

James does the sign for "emphatic agreement" which while running looks like nothing more than the regular semi-random motion of his body as he dodges obstacles and moves this way and that.

(The subtle signs were James's idea, not hers, to be completely fair to James's ability to think of neat ideas.)

Well. At least they're on the same page about how concerning their mate is. Because he is so concerning. Where... is he? It's like he's just kind of withered away after years of neglect, and now he's just confused by any signs of his own preferences or life!!!

But this seems like a long term problem, so. She will just leap over to take Alexei's hand and give it another squeeze. Because she loves him, and she wants so badly for him to be okay.

Eeeee mate handholding!

Okay but also he's unreasonably adorable. Here, James will hold his other hand.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

He is admittedly incredibly cute, and she wants to spoil him rotten until all of his horribly lonely years of isolation and murder are erased this is impossible and furthermore not productive. Think of better things, vampire brain.

Instead she will think about how she can totally leverage this witchcraft her new mate has for her own witchcraft! Coven taskmaster, that’s her.

“Sooo, Alexei, how willing are you to play fetch with unique objects for me to copy?” she wheedles, wryly.

"—mm?"

"So in order to transmute stuff, I need to have touched the material somewhere. Or, well, copied it, but in practice it's touch range. Ever since I turned I have been on a mad quest to touch and copy everything I possibly can."

"Oh!" That seems fun. He nods a few times happily.

"Excellent. Then the obvious things I'm still looking to fill in my library are..."

She has a list. It is not short. She wants every plant that has ever grown anywhere, every metal and alloy that anyone has ever dug up or used for anything, every interesting bit of technology to take apart and understand, samples of diseases and medicines and vaccines, every interesting insect or animal or mushroom or obscure type of coral, and on and on and on. It is safe to say he will have lots of things to go find and fetch. For a while. Possibly for forever, actually. She doesn't want to keep any of them, he'll get to put everything valuable back, but. He's going to be very busy if he would like to be.

Ooh! "I've seen lots of plants and rocks! Not so much technology but I could probably find some?"

"No eating people, though," he says at a pitch too high for his daughter to hear. "Or killing them or hurting them."

Wait what? How's he supposed to guarantee he's not detected? The Volturi would kill him!

Alexei didn't say that part out loud but James understood it from his face anyway. "Until you can pass for human one of us could come with you places? And then you teleport in and out. But probably you should stick to not-technology until you can pass for human."

...mmkay.

It absolutely did not occur to Yvette that killing people was on the list of possibilities to get her things to copy! She is actually now a bit dismayed and upset!

"Sticking with plants and rocks is fine," she says, at a normal pitch that Aurene can hear. Accidentally sending her mate on quests that can get people killed is something she can do now?? That's so upsetting!!!!

"Okay."

James is starting to notice a pattern, here, with Alexei, which he kind of wants to talk to Yvette about. Ho hum. Probably the alphabet signs they designed will work best even though he kind of does not like talking behind their mate's back. But...

Yeah, he's concerning, they are both concerned. It seems sort of like he's just been running on a mix of reflex and other people's rules ever since he turned? And has entirely forgotten how to be a person. They're going to need to teach him that, aren't they. Their poor mate, all alone for so long...

"Bear!" pronounces Aurene triumphantly from above, in a tone not usually reserved for when someone finds a bear. Usually the vampires would sense it first, but they're up against precognition, so in this particular case, they are beaten. She hangs upside down from the branches in front of them and points in the direction of the bear.

...also, if her precognition is pointing out a bear, then the bear must be significant somehow, her powers don't just randomly show stuff.

The obvious way in which a bear would be significant is helping their mate clear his head.

Okay. "Alexei, want me to show you how to eat a bear?"

"...apply teeth to skin. Drink."