"It's very cozy," says James, raising an eyebrow. "Hit by Volturi-induced wanderlust already, brother?"

"Yeah, kinda. We don't need to be as close to human civilization as other vampires do, and we should probably take advantage of that."

"I'm a little concerned about raising my daughter homeless in the woods, Blair."

"We can build a house," he points out.

"...knowing Aurene I think she would get a kick out of helping us build a house."

Aurene has been playing with brightly colored blocks this whole time. ... Possibly her recent obsession with them, and stacking them, has some context, now.

"Yeh! Canada!" she declares, beaming.

"See, Auri agrees," says Blair, smugly.

"... Why Canada, sweetheart?"

"Mmmm. Nice!"

"And also very secluded, with lots of nice wilderness and no one around anywhere nearby if we go far enough north..."

"Sounds good to me. And we're burning this house down?"

"Ideally! There are too many little Auri handprints in weird places to just leave it."

Yvette has a long suffering look on her face about her family's desire for arson.

Pet pet pet. "We can make a prettier house next."

Sigh.

"Is that one going to be burned down once we're done with it too?" she grumbles, but since she's not actually arguing against it, that probably means it's fine. Just distasteful.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"That's a yes hiding in a trenchcoat pretending to be a maybe." Siiiiigh. "But yes, fine, because it's practical."

"Canada!!!" says Aurene, who is clearly just fine with burning her childhood home down.

This is probably not an overnight endeavour, anyway, so they can say their goodbyes to the house, keep whatever they want to keep, et cetera.

It is not! There is some planning. Fortunately they all have super vampire strength and various other magical abilities. They can put things into some kind of storage, or have Yvette copy things, or pack them away into easily carried boxes. Yvette is a little bit grumpy about this, but cooperative.

It is a couple days later when they are ready to burn their house down. Blair is kind enough not to make Yvette make the petrol for it, he mysteriously shows up with it instead. And matches.

Sigh.

Pet pet pet.

Fire!

Aurene gets to drop the match!

"Eeeeee!" she says, gleefully.

SIGH.

"I am sorry you're in a family of arsonists."

"Are you. Are you really. You realize we are all flammable, except possibly Aurene."

"Nah. You're the weird one here," says Blair, cheerily. "Shall we go, or should we be responsible and make sure it doesn't cause the forest to burn down?"

"I would like to be responsible, thank you," sighs Yvette.

"On this one I think I agree with her."

And so they responsibly wait for it to finish burning! The forest does not burn down. Hooray.

And thus: Canda-wards!

The start of the voyage is uneventful: they run north, they avoid settlements and people, they throw Aurene at birds, the usual. She gives opinions about where in particular to go, and it's not like they have an extremely specific destination in mind other than "Canada-wards, away from people".

But the farther they travel the more specific those instructions become; they must go in that direction exactly, it's okay if they stop for now but when they resume they need to go that way. They'll have to go around that town there, and that's also fine, so long as they tour back to that other specific direction and then keep going.

"Sweetheart," James asks after a bit of this, "what exactly is it you're leading us towards?"

"Mmm. Best spot. And pretty!!"

"Best spot for what, Auri?"

"Best for nice pictures, silly!"

"Pictures as in the ones in your head? Can you show us?"

"Yes! And I could!" Pause.

But she doesn't.

...James raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to?"

"No."

"Uh. Why not, sweetheart?"

"Bad."

"So... the pictures are nice, but they're not as nice if we see them in advance?"

"Yeh!"

"...I am not going to question it," he says after a beat, shrugging.

"Checks out," agrees Blair.

"You're very sure it's good for all of us?" confirms Yvette, a little nervously.

"Best!" Aurene confirms, bouncing in her father's arms. He's the one carrying her, this time.

".... Okay."

He laughs and kisses the top of her head. Onwards, then.

Onwards! To the... best picture. Apparently.

The small infant with foresight leads them up into northern Quebec! While it does turn out to be both pretty and suitably out of the way, it doesn't seem at all notable compared to the rest of the picturesque wilderness around. A decent spot, tactically speaking? It's tucked away in the re-entrant of a couple modest foothills, with a lovely view of the wilderness below. The angle makes it tricky to spot from afar, with the foothills mostly in the way for any vampires speeding below, and not in the direct shortest distance path one might take. They aren't near any large bodies of water nearby, or roads, or cities, or anything else. It is just this one, very specific spot in the middle of nowhere.

"House!!" declares Aurene, happily.

Not... not questioning it.

"Is there a specific place where we should build our house here, princess?"

"Mmm-mm. Here though."

"Fair enough. Shall we begin, then?"

"I guess so, yeah."

... Okay, Yvette does like getting to design a house from nothing. She is still a little cranky about burning the last one down, but! This time she doesn't have to leave anything to her brother's questionable design tastes! With vampire superpowers and transmutation, it's easy to put together, if occasionally pretty tedious. Chop down a couple trees with super strength, use transmutation to clean them up, set them into place, so on. Soon enough, an adorable little cottage starts taking shape.

Aurene is very helpful, and also thinks it's great fun!!

Blair is sent south to clandestinely buy books. He's not very useful at interior design, and he is just fine being far away from the happy couple that includes his sister. In fact, taking a while to acquire the books is encouraged, because it'll help disguise where they're being brought to, which can only be a good thing, when a little family is avoiding attention.

Several days later, with Blair still away, the house is mostly complete, or at least adorable and livable. Yvette still fusses with final touches, though, occasionally zipping out into the woods to acquire more building supplies on her own to add an extra end table or a couple of shelves or molding to the cabinets or something. She is in the middle of one of these trips (with James back at the cottage, watching Aurene) when something unexpected occurs.

The something unexpected is a vampire.

It's weird, it's not like this patch of wilderness is at all different from any other patches of wilderness around. The vampire is probably just passing by on their way somewhere, and Yvette hears them from a distance before she sees them. The noises are unmistakable, someone running through the woods faster than anything else could, and said vampire probably heard her too, because they start (again, from the sounds of it) making a beeline towards her.

It's only courteous to check in with the locals about the boundaries of their territories, after all, even in the middle of nowhere.

Ohhhhh dear okay, she can do this, it's fine. It'll be fine. She's just alone this time instead of letting her husband or her brother do this. She transmutes the entirety of her wardrobe to an exact copy of itself to rid herself of all suspicious dhampir scents, and then. Goes to say hello. From a distance.

Belatedly, she realizes that she still has newborn red eyes, but. She can definitely come off as not newborn crazy in advance, that's not hard. She'll just hop in a tree and lounge in a way that makes absolutely no sense if one is a newborn vampire running entirely by instinct. And then she waits for the other vampire to come say hi.

"Hello," she says, a little nervously. "Don't worry, my coven doesn't have any towns in our territory, it's very easy to not step on our toes."

The vampire course-corrects to go directly towards the source of the voice and says, "No towns? Where do you—"

But whatever it was he was going to ask dies in his throat as he freezes as soon as he comes into view and his gaze lands on her.

She returns his gaze, and. And. Uh? Um???? Um! But she already has a mate???

Um???

She opens her mouth, but no words come out. She just. Stares at. This vampire. That is definitely the hottest vampire in all of the world, along with James, they are both equally hot in different ways.

The... the hottest vampire in all the world, along with James, they are both equally hot in different ways, seems similarly struck.

And then he's atop the tree, as well. He doesn't cross the distance between where he was and the tree, she can tell, he just—relocates himself from where he previously was to where he currently is, now, and stares at her intently.

She freezes at the clear teleportation, is he a witch too this is getting ridiculous, and makes a little tiny un-vampiric squeaky sound in her throat. He is now in close proximity to her and it was actually upon reflection probably dangerous to go greet a strange vampire by herself??? And also he's hot???? He's very hot???

"........... hi," she says, for lack of a better idea. "I'm. Yvette. Nice to meet you."

"Hi," he replies almost breathlessly, if a vampire could run out of breath. "I'm Alexei," and yeah, that's a faint Russian accent there. "Nice to meet you, too, Yvette."

OH NO! HE HAS A HOT ACCENT TOO! THAT'S NOT FAIR. NONE OF THIS IS FAIR.

She is honestly a little too shocked by his existence to really properly register that he's real. Uh. There's a lock of his hair that's slightly out of place in comparison to the rest of his hair, and he's close enough that she can just. Fix that. There. It is fixed now. Oh no what does she do now.

He beams widely at her and—vibrates? Teleports in place, a tiny fraction of a milimiter to the right, to the left, it's almost like he's blurring except he's not doing it so fast that she can't straightforwardly track every location he teleports to.

Oh no he's an incontinent teleporter when he's embarrassed that's so cute instead of blushing he's flickering aaaaaaa! This cuteness earns a little smile.

".... You should um." God it's hard to think when half of her brain is distracted by pretty and the other half of her brain is distracted by WHAT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE IMPOSSIBLE and she's operating out of half of a percent that's shoved in the margins. "Come meet my coven??"

He immediately nods and teleports down to the ground again, looking up at her and still vibrating in place while he waits.

He's so cute!

She hops down after him and, and, uh. Takes his hand. With her right hand. Oh man is he going to ask questions about her wedding rings she feels unfaithful to both of the people she's mated to that's not fair she hasn't even done anything!!!

"Our, um. House is this way." She points with her free hand.

Alexei does not seem to immediately notice her ring, or if he does he does not comment on it at all. When he takes her hand the incontinent teleporting stops—he wants to be very solid right now, he is holding his mate's hand—and he waits for her to lead on.

Ooookay this way they go! Back home! What time is it, she has forgotten, can it be after 8 PM because she is still a mother with a young daughter and, so, it.

Probably she should try to give Alexei some kind of heads up??? About things??? But there is too much, and too many feelings besides, and and and she is just going to take him home with her and put him in front of James and probably it will all be fine, right. Right. Probably.

James—notices. His witchcraft's range is large enough that he notices that—there is another vampire? And they're holding hands? What the fuck.

"Uh, princess, can you stay here for a minute?" he asks Aurene.

"Mhm!!" Aurene says, bouncing happily.

".... James we just became more complicated!!!" calls Yvette, because, because. Probably she should explain but help.

...Aurene seems far too happy about this.

......................this is the pretty picture she mentioned, isn't it. Just how...? Whatever, he jumps through the window and—

—and now an incontinent teleporter has teleported to a couple of inches in front of his face, staring.

—what the fuck.

There is a brief moment of panic, then he looks at Yvette and notices that—he is still mated to her, he is mated to both of them???? What?????

The incontinent teleporter takes a tenth of a second to notice he's teleported away from his mate and then teleports back to Yvette.

......and now he has teleported away from his mate again?????? He teleports back to James.

Wait. WHAT IS GOING ON.

"Yeah! Yeah me too!!" squeaks Yvette, seeing the problem Alexei is having and zipping over to be next to. Both. Of her mates. "So, so you two have also? It's?? It's all three of us???"

Wait what.

"I—I think so. Aurene this is all your fault," James calls without letting his eyes leave the new vampire's face. "Remind me to buy you a gift for it later," he adds.

Alexei looks between—both of his mates? He has two??????? That is too many except it is the perfect number—and he starts vibrating again, and each time he vibrates he's looking at one of them and now he is definitely doing it too fast for even vampire vision to track, at the speed of vampire thought rather than the speed of vampire motion.

From inside, Aurene is cackling.

"It's not her bedtime for another hour!" wails Yvette, heartbroken.

That seems to snap Alexei out of—whatever was going on this time. "Bedtime?"

"Oh he has an accent," breathes James.

"Isn't it great!" agrees Yvette, enthusiastically.

Wait no she is supposed to be the responsible one! Explain things!!! Use words!!! "Uh, Alexei, this is my husband, James. He mated to me when I was still human, and, um. It. Turns out that vampires can in fact sire children in human women so. That. That happened."

"You have an immortal child?"

"No," replies James immediately. "—I mean, she is immortal but she is not a vampire, she is half-human. Listen, she has a heartbeat. She was born from Yvette, she ages and grows, she'll eventually reach adulthood and stop aging there. ...which we know because she can see the future."

Alexei teleports up into the air, looks through the window, then into their house, and then back, all within fractions of a second, and blinks at both of them in bewilderment. He clearly believes them, he has seen it and he can hear her heartbeat but—okay this is clearly a day where everything he knew about being a vampire turns out to be wrong.

"Hi!!!" calls Aurene, brightly.

"Oh, no wonder she's been so smug," snorts Yvette.

"Oh yeah she looked super smug when I put her down, the little gremlin, she has been plotting this all along."

...he is so confused right now.

"When is Blair coming back," whines James.

"Her bedtime is in an hour, we. We can do this. We're both very stubborn people and demonstrably we've done the impossible multiple times already."

"Uh."

"Blair is her brother," James explains. "And it turns out—Aurene, or maybe half-vampires in general—sleep through the night, eight PM and she passes out like the dead. Which is... useful."

"Oh... oh."

Okay he's vibrating again.

"He's adorable."

"Isn't he!" she agrees with a little squeal.

Wait no they are supposed to WAIT UNTIL AFTER 8PM. YES.

"So," says Yvette, trying to be serious, "we are all witches. Aurene has foresight, my brother Blair has tracking, I have transmutation, and James has a, a. Knowledge of all things around him in a radius."

"And you can... instantaneously move places?"

...wait this is wrong aren't they meant to—do something else—wait bedtime—OH RIGHT HE JUST THOUGHT THIS—he's getting distracted by how pretty they both are—

"Yes," he says, nodding many times very quickly. "Places I've seen. No distance limit." Blur blur vibrate vibrate. Frown. "...this is new, though."

"New as of meeting Yvette," James guesses.

Nodnodnodnodnodnod.

She is very tempted to say, 'It calms down a bit when he's touched,' but NO that is a BAD TOPIC they must be STRONG.

"It's very charming! Do you um, want to come inside and meet Aurene properly? Maybe give your opinion on the house and on whether you want anything in it changed?"

"...okay."

Has he just been subsumed by this coven it seems so he cannot seem to find it in himself to object to this it sounds AWESOME actually.

Cottage! Lovingly decorated and very cute, and containing a small cute child!

Small cute child: looks kind of put out, actually.

"Why are your eyes red like mummy's? The pictures said they'd be gold!"

"...my eyes?" Pause. "How are your eyes golden?" he asks James, teleporting in place to face his mate.

"Ohhhhhhhhh dear."

Yvette winces.

"Vampires can live on animal blood, and when they drink it, it turns their eyes gold," says Yvette, carefully. "Except in my case, because I'm a newborn."

"But his eyes are darker!!"

"Right. Uh. Well. He has been on the... typical vampire diet. Of, uh. Humans."

Aurene considers this.

"People are not for eating," she informs Alexei, gravely.

"Animals? They smell toxic."

"No ill effects since I switched. ...well, I got a bit physically weaker, but most changes were positive."

"...like?—wait you're actually a newborn?"

Everything he knew about vampires was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Oh. Yes. I've been a vampire for..." she pauses and does arithmetic. "... a little over two months. It helps that I've never had human blood, I think, and I had warning beforehand."

"Animal blood calms the instincts," James clarifies. "We get more sociable, less aggressive—and, uh, I think smarter too, actually. Or at least it feels that way, there's less space in my head worrying about... other vampires, threats, hunting."

...yeah he's run out of words again this is being a very confusing hour.

"That's why I was in the tree when you met me, actually. I realized I still had the eyes and needed to definitively act like I wasn't a crazy newborn. Because a normal newborn showing up to greet you on her own would have been... alarming."

Aurene is the one interested in the important topics, here!

"I'm not allowed to eat people! You aren't either," she informs Alexei, laying down the law.

"...okay."

That person is too small and it makes him kind of uncomfortable.

James takes a step closer to Alexei to pet him.

He leeeeeeeans towards the petting and purrs, his eyes flitting shut.

Awwwwwww look at him he needs to be touched WAIT NO SHE MUST BE STRONG.

"Do you want to go catch some birds before bed, sweetheart? I'll throw you," wheedles Yvette.

"Ooo!" Mummy throwing her at birds is rare enough to be very exciting! She's not very hungry but that's okay! "Yeh! Yeh!"

"Okay, let's go catch some birds," coos Yvette, scooping up her daughter to take her outside and give Alexei some space. Poor thing. ... He gets a kiss on the forehead before she goes, just so he doesn't think she's abandoning him.

He whines a bit when she leaves then gives James a kicked puppy look.

James takes the second Aurene is not near to kiss his mate on the lips, a quick over and done peck, then says, "Come on, handsome, let's follow our girls for now. Spend some time together as a family."

...our girls? Family?

............he likes those words more than he'd have expected. He nods dumbly and follows James.

Yvette beams at Alexei when he and James come outside. Oh! Okay! Apparently he wants to come, then, that's fine.

Aurene meanwhile is so excited to show off being thrown at birds.

Yvette gives an indulgent sigh and zips over to a space that is not quite so covered in vampire smell that drives all animals away. And then she throws her daughter at a bird.

Aurene snatches it out of the air! She lands neatly and bites its head off and drains it, then starts carefully plucking some of its feathers off. The ones that have a bad texture. She doesn't want to eat those.

The small person is strange but. Kind of cute? And she ate a bird. Not just the blood. That's weird.

What has his life become.

James laughs at the look on Alexei's face and then pushes his mate the rest of the way towards Yvette before following.

"Nicely done," praises Yvette, scooping up her daughter again.

"Mmmmmm. Another!"

Aurene catches another bird, breaking its neck! Then she leaps back over to Alexei and holds it up to him.

"I know you don't know how so here!" she says, offering him the dead bird.

??????? what the fuck

He... accepts the bird????? And then looks at his mates because help???????????????

Nope sorry honey James is laughing too hard now.

"And now you drink its blood," says Aurene, sagely.

Oh no so cute but okay yes she will save her new mate. Or at least help him.

"She doesn't expect you to eat it like she does. Just. She. Wants to help. If you'd rather not I can take it."

"No mummy he has to learn," says the coven's taskmaster.

...he... tentatively lifts the bird to his lips? And?? Sinks his teeth into it?

And makes a disgusted face when he tastes the blood but dutifully drains it.

"Eee!" says the two month old half-vampire, beaming. "Good job."

"Thank you for humoring her," says Yvette, at a pitch Aurene can't hear. "I'm sorry. I swear carnivores taste slightly less terrible."

"...yay?"

What does he do with this corpse.

Aurene will take it back! She sniffs it, critically.

"Mummy clean it!"

"Yes, dear," sighs the latest victim of the coven's real power.

Venom: gets transmuted into water. And then she hands the bird back.

She plucks the offending feathers off and then gets to crunching. Crunch crunch crunch.

What an intensely strange small person.

"You should pet him," James tells Yvette. "His hair is very nice and soft."

But... but she's supposed to be strong, but. But soft hair. And he's so cute! And he did so well and was so sweet and tolerant to her strange little murder child!!!

....

Okay yes she'll indulge in hairpets. Pet, pet, pet, pet.

"Mmmmm blocks."

This demand is at James. She is looking expectantly at her father, now. No one will be spared Aurene's wrath. No one.

James will sigh longsufferingly and then obey his taskmaster.

Eeeee he's being petted he purrs contentedly and wait where did James go nooooooo

"Awwwwww. It's okay, we'll go too," says Yvette, and she gently tugs Alexei after their mate.

And thus, all grownups are gathered around while Aurene plays blocks. This is how the world should be.

Yvette can lean on Alexei and gently keep petting his hair, though. Poor dear. He keeps being so sad if he's missing a mate!!!!

But now he's around both of them (....and their weird small person) so it's fine.

And though time be wont to pass much more slowly when one wants it to go by quickly, 8PM eventually arrives.

Yaaaaaaawn!

And then she is tucked away in bed and out like a light.

"Outside," says Yvette, firmly. "I know you're going to be very smug about how you got me to make an extra big bed, but right now we will absolutely break it. So. Outside."

"Hey Alexei?" says James, getting rid of his clothes real quick. "Catch me," he says, jumping through the window.

...he can literally teleport on top of James and does just that.

James flops onto the ground at the sudden weight with an "oof" and then starts laughing.

And here is Yvette, following them out of the window! Poor Alexei has been all alone!!! Don't worry, they will fix it with the obvious mate activities.

And while James and Yvette have been together rather a while now and know each other pretty well Alexei is new.

Which means they can work together to absolutely tear him to pieces.

In the best possible way.

Their new mate is so sweet and adorable and... kind of like a starving man finally confronted with a feast. Which on one hand is quite fun and flattering, but on the other hand is a bit concerning. She is concerned.

"We're going to need to be decent in about five minutes," she murmurs, regretfully. While cuddling her mates which is great extra cuddles are wonderful.

James is definitely sharing that concern, here.

"I don't know, love, I think he looks more than decent."

Blur blur purr.

"He is a radiant Adonis in vampire form who puts everyone but you and I to shame," agrees Yvette, amused. "But nonetheless we all should probably put on some clothes!"

James laughs and shakes his head. "I suppose."

Then he pauses and looks around them at the... scraps of Alexei's clothing that got destroyed in the first twenty seconds of the night. "Uh..."

Alexei smirks then disappears.

"I suppose it would make perfect sense for him to have a stash of spare clothes or something," says Yvette with a fond sigh, zipping away to retrieve a set of clothes for herself and James.

Alexei returns before she does, wearing a different outfit and grinning like the cat that got the canary.

James laughs and kisses him on the nose then grabs his clothes from his wife and puts them on.

Yvette giggles as she gets her own clothes on, then hugs Alexei when all of that's taken care of.

"So I motion that we make a point of one or both of us touching Alexei at all times, and that preferably we both stay around him. At least for now. Since he's still getting settled in this whole 'being mated' business." She nuzzles him and pets his hair.

If the way he's purring is any indication he seems on board with this plan.

"I believe that's two in favor, and that means we have a majority! If you disagreed you've been overruled, love." She winks at James.

"No, no, sweetheart, the part I disagreed with was putting clothes on him."

"Aurene will have enough trouble connecting to ordinary human society without us making nudity taboos a foreign concept to her! Besides, Blair won't come anywhere near us without clothes, if we made a habit of not wearing them he might get fed up and leave entirely. Do you want us to lose our tracker, James?"

"Maybe just the shirt," muses her husband.

Alexei giggles and kisses Yvette on the cheek.

"The shirt is negotiable," agrees Yvette, fondly. She grins at Alexei when he kisses her, and zips forward to kiss the very end of his nose.

And from inside: there is a sound of an infant stirring!

"And it seems like our dearest daughter is up," says James before vanishing to go upstars. Yvette seems to have Alexei's touching needs well in hand.

She does! Behold how she wraps her arms around him to snuggle him aggressively before he can get sad about James being gone for under a minute.

"Would you like a ring?"

Blink blink.

"So it seems exceptionally silly to go running off to get officially married just for the sensibilities of the humans around. But, I like having something of James's on me at all times, telling everyone that I'm his. And if you're the same, then I will absolutely make you a ring here and now and you can wear it around forever."

"Oh."

Like a marriage thing, is how she meant it.

He vibrates in place a bit.

She giggles and pets him, vibrating though he is.

"Is that a yes?" she teases.

Nod nod nod vibrate.

"All right. It will be done, darling." She kisses his cheek, and then fishes out a small lock of her hair to begin braiding it. Call her a romantic, but it seems fitting, even if the end result will be transmuted into something less flimsy than hair.

"And I expect James will want to do something like this too, and is entirely free to ask for help from his witch wife, but somehow I expect he'll want to figure something out himself." This is, of course, said at a volume that James can hear.

"Spoilers!" he calls out from wherever he is.

Alexei giggles.

Yvette rolls her eyes fondly as she finishes braiding the small lock of her own hair. Then she takes Alexei’s hand to wrap the lock around his ring finger. Once properly arranged, it’s transmuted to a lovely rose gold. She needs to do a bit more cleanup, like where the two ends met, and making sure the ring is solid instead of thin strands of rose gold, but! The form of the ring is there. If Alexei likes it, anyway.

“I’m going to want to tidy it up a bit more, but. What do you think, darling? Pretty enough for you?”

He does his best to stop vibrating while she's fiddling with the ring, and when she asks if he finds it pretty he nods several times in a row and then immediately tackles her.

She is tackled, and giggles, amused.

"Careful! We need to stay decent, darling."

He pulls away a bit and blinks in confusion for a second before remembering why, and then just whines thinly and pathetically.

“Aw. Poor man.” She pets him, amused. “This does give us the opportunity to know about each other in more than a carnal fashion, though. I love you and want to know all about you.”

"Get decent," James calls in a tone too high for Aurene to hear—

...fine. He sits up and does not be on top of Yvette.

And presently here's James, holding Aurene in his arms. "I, too, am interested in getting to know you," he tells Alexei.

And now Alexei is looking suspiciously at Aurene again.

Aurene has by now had her morning breakfast (a couple of birds, of course) and is looking all perky and curious!

"Yeh!! Hi!! Do I call you uncle or are you another daddy, the pictures didn't say."

Help???????

"Uhhh we'll give it time, sweetheart. I expect just calling him Alexei would be fine?"

"Yeah," he says in something that would be described as a "croak" if it were a human doing it but since he's a vampire and one of the way in which they're bullshit is having unreasonably pretty voices it cannot, in fact, be described as that.

"'Kay!" She would like to pat him, so: daddy! Bring her over for pats for the sad vampire. "You're welcome for finding you," she says, when she is in patting range and can pat accordingly.

The taskmaster will of course always be obeyed.

He will submit to this indignity.

"Finding... me..."

"Oh, she was very insistent about us living here in particular. And now we know why! Our little precog wanted us to find you." Alexei's head is currently being patted, so she instead takes his hand (with his new ring!) and kisses it gently.

"Yeh!" Pat pat okay she is done patting now. "You were sad and now you're not!"

So... he has two mates, who are also mated to each other, so it's probably some bizarre hypothetical that happened to never have happened before, of three people being mutually compatible like this and running into each other. And he'd probably never have run into them if their... small precognitive person... hadn't told them to come here in particular. At least several days ago, from how inhabited this place is, but probably more since she'd have had to be guiding them for a while?

How does that work. He didn't know he was going to be here several days ago, does this mean free will is an illusion, what does free will even mean anyway.

Also why is he even wasting time with the running commentary when he just found the two hottest people in the world he should be fucking them—

—wait, no, small precognitive person should... not be awake... while they're fucking... for some reason.

Also also this is too many witches, do even the Volturi have this many, how does this happen, he feels toyed with by the forces of Fate.

Oh and they said they want to know him which he has no idea how to—what does it even mean, they met, what else is there to know—

James glances at Alexei for a second at that.

Yeah, kiddo, he's not so sure yet.

Yvette finds her new mate's obvious confusion really adorable and has to hold in a laugh at it. But she should probably rescue him from the wrath of the tiny taskmaster, so:

"Do you want to work on your numbers, sweetheart?"

"Nyrhm."

"Pleeeeease? I bet Alexei will be so impressed!"

She gives Alexei a suspicious look, and then says: "Nhrr!"

"Letters, then?"

"I know them all already!!"

"But you're not practiced at putting them together! Don't you want to show Blair how you can read all on your own when he gets back with books?"

"...... Mrhm."

This is a yes, if admittedly a grudging one.

Alexei blinks out of his confusion when he hears his mate talk about teaching the UPSETTINGLY SMALL PERSON how to read.

It occurs to him he doesn't know how.

He's... having some sort of emotion about this but he's not sure what it is.

Yvette, not being a mind reader and furthermore having a Mission to Accomplish, has no idea! But she gives Alexei's hand another kiss and then zips off to retrieve paper and a pencil so Aurene can grumpily practice her letters.

Grumble, grumble, okay fine she'll write out the whole alphabet, she guesses.

James... is not a mind reader but he likes to pride himself in being a person reader. Somewhat.

"Alexei? Are you alright?" he asks, at a dhampir-undetectable pitch.

"...yeah," he replies, like a lying liar who lies.

Conversation to be had when he is not currently overwhelmed by their child, that's fair. Somehow it didn't occur to him that "conversation" might be something he'd want to do during the eight hours Aurene was asleep for.

This Yvette notices: she looks up from teaching Aurene to give Alexei a concerned look, then says (also at a dhampir-undetectable pitch), "Love you, darling."

And then it is back to wrestling psychologically with her child to get some kind of an education into her supernaturally developing young mind! Letters. They go together, and sometimes they make sounds that don't make logical sense when that happens! Isn't English fun?

NO.

But soon Aurene will be able to write her own name! And see, it has lots of the weird doesn't-sound-like-it-looks in it!

"Spelling is stupid and I hate it," declares Aurene when she compares the correct spelling of her own name to what she thinks it should be. "Why did you have to use fake letters in my name."

"Sweetheart, I'm afraid you were the one who told us your name."

"MNRH!"

Nope it is no longer letters time, it is pouting time. How dare he bring 'logic' into this.

Yvette sighs, but doesn't push this time. This is kind of just how education sessions go, at least without proper books to read to her to make it more fun. Which Blair will show up with... at some point.

Their poor, sad, hard-done-by daughter.

"Do you want to run to the lake and see who can make the biggest splash?" he suggests.

".... Yeh!!!" she says, mostly because running and splashing are fun.

"Oh, that'd be a good place for me to finish your ring, so I don't have to spend ages wrestling with air," says Yvette, brightly.

Oh. Yeah, sounds good.

She beams at him, and then they can all go out on a trip to the lake. It's a bit of a run, but perfectly doable as a day trip for vampires, and one easily carried dhampir.

(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."

"He does have that practice with a bird," she points out to James, amused. "And he teleports, he doesn't have to have the same hunting style. Why doesn't he show us how to eat a bear, hm?"

This is a smug smile if they've ever seen one.

"Very well, maybe we will be the ones learning."

"We'll just have to see! Aurene honey do you want to be carried so you can watch?"

Is it maybe questionable parenting to let her small and impressionable child witness violence? Yes. But also, her small and impressionable child is half vampire and hunts and kills birds herself, so uh. Some level of constant background violence is sort of expected at this point. Also her daughter is extremely good at having preferences, even now. Possibly especially now, actually.

"Nyeh!" pronounces the dhampir, who firmly stays up in the trees. She wants to try to see if she can keep up on her own!! She doesn't care about killing techniques in the slightest.

Strange small person is strange.

They can find said bear easily enough, and Alexei immediately teleports on top of it. Then James realises, a second too late, what the result of Alexei's inexperience with the bear will be.

Yvette as well. Fortunately for her parenting sensibilities, not only does Aurene have trouble keeping up at top vampire speed, but the bear is not in fact focused on defending itself against Alexei's pants. So. Sigh. It's just going to be a bit of a mess. Animals tend to be messier than humans, efficiency of killing is not quite the same as efficiency of eating, nor efficiency of keeping one's clothes intact.

Alexei is... not particularly dismayed by his clothes getting ripped to shreds like that (mostly his shirt, as mentioned, his pants get rips here and there but are mostly fine) but the way large carnivorous animals react a lot more messily and loudly to being eaten than humans is very irritating.

It... does taste better than the bird, he guesses? And if the bird isn't toxic the bear probably isn't either? If he can't trust his literal soul mates to tell him the truth about what is or isn't toxic he might as well die.

But at the end of it the bear is drained dry and Alexei is standing by it shirtless (he got rid of the few tatters that still clung to his body) and bloody, and... Well, his eyes are definitely no longer red, but also he's sort of not moving at all and has an intent look on his face.

....

oh no he's hot.

No, no, bad Yvette, fix his shirt, you're a transmutation witch, dealing with mending family clothes (and in many cases making them) is one of the many facets of your self-assigned responsibilities. She'll just, uh, get to picking up and putting together the torn bits of his shirt.

James has no such responsibilities and can just stare, at least until his two-month-old daughter is close enough that he should pretend to not have a sexuality.

"This feels different," he says after a few seconds, apparently oblivious to his mates' horny.

"James and Blair said the same thing," says Yvette conversationally, about halfway through shirt repairs and trying desperately to distract herself. "It's one of the reasons I'm not going to cheat and make human blood for myself to drink. The, um, brain stuff? What's it like?"

(Aurene has just about caught up, and is probably going to pout about not being as fast as her parents at the age of two months. Because of course she is.)

"...more space. More things. More..." He spends a second thinking. "Me."

"I'm so glad," she says, beaming. She returns his now perfectly mended and unstained shirt to him, averting her eyes a little shyly instead of taking in the view.

Aurene arrives! She flings herself into her daddy's arms to wail about how it's not fair, she was trying her hardest, why can't she be as fast as they are!!!!

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, it's just that you are so amazing that the universe had to do something, otherwise you'd be too powerful and take over the world."

He blinks at his mate as she's handing him the shirt and—something new in him suggests she is feeling some emotion but he does not know what it is. He gives her a quizzical look.

Aurene understands what he's saying, but nonetheless does not find his argument compelling. At her age she does not have any particular rebuttal. Just this very loud tantrum.

"Oh, I, um." It's not hard to avoid being heard by Aurene, since Aurene is kind of in the middle of having a screaming tantrum, but she changes her pitch regardless. "... You're very pretty, and also my mate, and you were very... you looked more like yourself. I find that appealing." Her mouth twitches a little to indicate the direction she found that appealing.

"Oh." He... supposes it makes sense that his mate would find an expression of personality attractive given how this is meant to work? Maybe this whole "having a personality" thing is not without its merits.

He idly observes, also, that that thought was... he's not sure how to describe it. It was sort of like it felt like he should've found it harder to think than he in fact did?

...he's finding he likes this a lot lot lot more than he hates the taste of bear. Even though humans taste so nice...

"Okay."

"I hadn't really been in any kind of position to judge before, all vampires had gone gold by the time I'd turned. I don't think I even properly met any of them with human blood in their system while I was human. I'm the closest example I've got, really, and honestly I already feel very all over the place emotionally? I really don't want to see how it'd be worse. Apparently I'm doing fantastically, but really it just feels like I've gotten better at pretending," she babbles, at the pitch she's at, because she's not allowed to tackle her mate who is very clearly feeling more like himself, but she is allowed to babble.

"When did you turn. Again."

"Two months ago, I thought we mentioned?" he says, which is kind of just a social nicety because they all have perfect memory of the time she mentioned it. He's also at that same pitch inaudible to Aurene and also at a speed that can go between his soothing words to her.

"Yes. It was rhetorical." He is now having many thoughts. Many, many, many thoughts.

She still isn't a mind reader. She blinks up at him, painfully aware that he still hasn't put his shirt back on.

"..... I can fix your ring now if you want. With the um, bear?"

"Okay."

"I've seen newborns before."

Ohhhhh that's the epiphany he's having, yes he'll be very smug about their mate even though he has nothing to do with any of that and it is entirely Yvette's achievement. Nevertheless, watching Alexei have thoughts strung together like this is very nice.

The thing isn't even that he has that much more space, it's just that he can—put it away—the mate bond, too, everything is a lot less loud so the thoughts don't get interrupted.

And so he is now properly boggled by how the fuck his two-month-old mate is. Is. Like this.

She takes and kisses his hand, removes the ring she gave him, and then gets to plunging it into bear viscera to make the whole thing more structurally sound and perfect to even vampire sensibilities. She's keeping the character, of course, the outside appearance ring is staying almost exactly the same, but also now all of the little strands of her hair that got turned to rose gold can actually meld together properly and be a cohesive unit. ... With a vampire tooth enamel core, actually, because if she's building this she's building it right. This will not break, ever, not if she can help it, and she can.

"I get the impression they need to be constantly managed? Which just sounds annoying for everyone involved."

"Yeah."

"...that was a bit more vehement than I'd expected, should we change the subject?"

He does not respond.

The ring is now fixed! She cleans it of any remaining bear viscera, returns it to the proper finger with another kiss, and then nestles against her unhappy mate because he is clearly having at least one emotion and she doesn't understand why. Hugging is allowed, so she will do that.

(Aurene, meanwhile, is starting to calm down. Mostly what mollified her is the reassurance that she's still very young, and might get faster as she gets older. But now she's upset that she's not older now, because she wants to be as fast as they are now, too.)

(James suspects she is never really going to be as fast as they are but hopefully by then she will no longer care so much about it. To be perfectly honest he doesn't really care about it and would trade with her if he could and if that were not a horrible idea.)

(...he thinks the him of red eyes would not have agreed. That's kind of disorienting.)

"I was turned in 1682," Alexei says eventually, after doing some maths in his head that he—could have done before but would not really have cared to.

The mate in his arms goes still.

"You're...? Oh. Then you're, um. Older than all of us put together, including Blair, even if we count human lifetimes before turning."

That's such a boggling difference of experience, what the fuck, he was alone for that long?

"Oh." Well he can't let go of his daughter now but he really really wants to hug his mate. Especially because... "Late 1600 Russia, weren't there..."

"Wars. Revolts. Yes. I was turned in one.

"Me and dozens of other people."

"Oh you were in a newborn army Jesus fuck—"

Not letting Aurene hear this, nope, hug hug soothe soothe yep.

A trace of an angry hiss escapes Yvette's lips, but she cuts it off before it gets much of anywhere and instead focus on snuggling Alexei. Her poor, poor Alexei who suffered all alone for so long, and was turned and used callously as a weapon. She'd thought it was cruel before, in a vague detached sort of way, but now that this wrong has been done to someone she loves, she hates it. She would absolutely dust and incinerate the person responsible right this second if it were at all plausible that they were still alive, which they probably aren't, but. ... She should verify that. Or she has a problem to go solve.

"Those responsible are already centuries cooled ashes and we don't need to go solve that right this instant, yes?" she confirms, in a pitch Aurene can definitely not hear because her daughter should probably not be exposed to her mother being quite this murderous. Yvette's not really sure what to do with being quite this murderous, actually, this is a bit confusing.

He shrugs. "I have not been back to Russia since. Most of the others were killed. I... was harder to kill.

"But you are not how other newborns are."

She wants to go check right this instant, wants to dig up whatever evidence could possibly remain and burn everyone involved with this horrible injustice to cinders and this is such a stupid instinct shut up vampire head, at two months old you probably can't take on anyone involved if they're still alive, even if you could directly transmute vampire flesh to lava, which you can't. (Actually, she should probably get on that, that sounds useful. Note to self for later.)

"I'm," and she has to take a careful breath and keep control of herself, but she does, "extremely, absurdly lucky, and had a lot of chances at the very beginning to have it painfully obvious to me that my innate vampire instincts are dumb and should be ignored most of the time. And, uh, motherhood also helps, I don't have room to throw tantrums, I. Need to be okay."

...are innate vampire instincts dumb? Alexei had not thought of them that way before.

They kept him alive.

He might've been able to be alive even without them, if, if the way this, if the way he feels right now...

...he really needs time to think.

He should stop talking and just hug his mate. ...and, right, put his shirt on, she went through all that trouble.

(This elicits a small, amused snort from Yvette.)

"Do we still want to go to the lake?" she asks all assembled, at a pitch Aurene can actually hear.

"Mmhmmnn," sniffles Aurene, from her daddy's arms where she's nestled. She has calmed down a bit, but she's noticed that her parents are unhappy about something, and she doesn't know why. Clearly the only thing to do about it was hug her daddy about it. "Mummy, hug?"

"Coming, sweetness." At a higher pitch, she adds a somewhat wry: "Duty calls," and instead of disentangling from Alexei she can just gently steer him over to James, who certainly also wants to hug their mate right now. Then she can trade with him, and scoop Aurene out of his arms, and snuggle her close and try not to think murderous thoughts.

...this does not become any less bewildering with golden eyed brain, the way he feels like whining when he lets go of Yvette and like wagging his tail like a puppy when he hugs James.

James loves his daughter very much but also Alexei was clearly Having A Time there and he wanted to comfort him too, so this is good.

He hums. "So Yvette got you a ring. And—you don't, uh... There's nobody you'd invite to a proper wedding, is there?"

It takes Alexei half a second to understand he's the one being talked to and then reprocess the words. "No?"

"Mine," hums Yvette smugly in a singsong, at a child inappropriate pitch. "That's the important part."

At a child appropriate pitch: "Hmmmmm, Aurene dear, your mummy is going to turn part of this bear into another meal, since it's gone and gotten killed already, does anyone else want any?"

Alexei blurs in place when she calls him "mine" and almost gives in to the impulse to hug himself but immediately grimaces when she mentions the bear. Those are not things that should go together, nice mate and bears.

"No thank you, dear." And back to their mate: "So... I think the thing I want for the two of us is, I don't really know what I mean by, that but I want to marry you."

...well if even James doesn't know what he means how is Alexei supposed to???

Even if it sounds nice. The words do, that is.