“Good morning.”

 

“And to you, Inquisitor,” Amelie smiled at her from her chair. She was safely locked up still, Katherine spotted, and by the lack of marks on her arms, she hadn’t struggled against her restraints much. This was her third day in the chair and so far she hadn’t complained. The japes notwithstanding, Amelie had been a very cooperative prisoner. She sat down.

 

“You’re awful chipper this morning, Prisoner? Something on your mind?”

 

Amelie shrugged happily. “The worst part of the story, the way I see it, is over with.”

 

“Oh, how is that?”

 

Amelie had played her cards close to her chest, insofar as that had been possible. The young woman interviewing her had even gotten to her, once or twice, with her disarming smile. But it was her turn again.

 

“Because,” she grinned, “now comes an entire century of debauchery.”

 

Katherine didn’t look up from her scroll. “Let’s skip right past that then, shall we?”

 

“Hey!” Amelie was appalled. Offended, even. She’d hoped for some kind of impact. “It’s truly scandalous! I spent one hundred years--”

 

“Not important, I’m afraid,” Katherine said, matching her gaze. Amelie could see the vaguest hint of a smile hidden in her eyes, and she didn’t appreciate it. 

 

“But…”

 

“I’d like to hear more about your promise to your parents.”

 

“Which one?”

 

Katherine dipped her pen in the ink.

 

“The promise of children.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Amelie sank in her chair, as far as it would allow her to, deflated and defeated.

 

“Didn’t happen, I’m afraid.”

 

“Oh? No fun stories to tell? No juicy tales here?”

 

“None.”

 

Katherine looked a bit disappointed, but it didn’t keep her from prodding at what was, to Amelie, clearly a sore spot.

 

“By choice?”

 

Amelie looked at her with a look of pained confusion.

 

“Of course not. I… was simply… I couldn’t…” Tears welled up in her eyes.

 

She and Katherine looked each other in the eye, and for a split second, something clicked in Katherine’s mind. In just a single moment, Katherine saw Amelie, not as a vampire, or as a prisoner, but very simply as someone who couldn’t, could never, bear children. Whether Amelie’d had the ability to sire them was almost beside the point. Katherine’s pen dropped out of her hand.

 

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Amelie.”

 

“You couldn’t know. How could you have?”

 

“I… I’m sorry.”

 

Amelie didn’t say anything and tried to control her breathing.

 

“Instead then… how did you come to look like… this? You seem to possess a lot of… femininity? How did that happen?”

 

“Patience.”

 

---

 

When it came to feeding… I knew what I was. What I craved, and why. I had always been a terrible fighter. A loudmouth, certainly, but never a fighter, and while I had been in plenty of altercations, I’d never thrown so much as a punch, mostly blocking incoming swings with my face. I was not very heroic. As such, the thought of subduing another human being and taking from them against their will was abhorrent to me. 

 

I went hunting often. My father was proud. I went alone, of course. I told my father a hunter from the village had told me to bleed my kills dry in the field, that several pints of blood could make a distinct difference in weight when it came to carrying my prey home. I found that surviving off the blood of animals was unpleasant, but it sated me. The hunger, I vowed, would never compel me to hurt a soul. All of us, in our youthful arrogance, say stupid things, I suppose.

 

Using my family’s wealth, I spent, as I’d mentioned, the next few years in lavish debauchery. Not that my parents would ever know, of course. As they saw it, I spent weeks abroad or in the houses of families friendly to our own. In private, these gatherings were debased orgies. While I required no solid sustenance, wine still did what it was supposed to.

 

But there was… more than that.

 

I met Elisabeth again. I had sent her an invite to our family’s summer home, so that I could see her in private. Back then, she had not yet chosen that name, but she asked me once to refer to her as Elbrecht before she’d revealed herself to me, and Elisabeth after, so as to differentiate the two. Elbrecht, as she saw it, was dead. 

 

She arrived in a very sober carriage, wearing muted, sober clothing. I felt guilty and overdressed, as I’d received her in a green gown my handmaidens had made for me. It didn’t hide the width of my chest and shoulders well, but it gave me the illusion of hips and, at the time, that had been enough for me. When she saw me, she seemed deeply hurt, and I thought it initially because of the way we had last parted ways, a notion that was dispelled when she spoke. 

 

“You mock me,” she said. “First you treat me with revulsion, and now this? Even if this is your attempt at… at… relating to what I am going through, it is misplaced and offensive. I thought you better than that.”

 

If I could have gotten a word in edgewise, I would have. I feel I should have. Regardless, when she finished her tirade, I walked up to her and begged her to walk with me, that I not only meant no offense, but that my method of dress was not only not a mockery, I also had no intention of patronizing her. She didn’t understand, of course. I told her, as we walked through the beautiful gardens of the estate, that I believed that she and I had found one another as birds of a feather. She still didn’t understand. 

 

I tried to make it clear in no uncertain terms that her revelation to me had seemed so horrid a proposition, not out of some maligned disgust of what is often referred to as the natural order of things, but rather abject terror. It was fear, I told her, that what she was experiencing was distinctly possible. I sat down on a bench and urged her to do the same as I told her that her revelation to me showed me that my own experience of myself were not, in fact, the norm for men, and that I could no longer deny my own realities.

 

She had difficulty with this, I remember.

 

“You as well,” she shook her head with disbelief. “You must be joking, but I did not take you for the kind of person to be so.. Cruel.”

 

It took hours upon hours and, I must admit, bottles of wine before she accepted that not only was she not alone, it was her best friend and closest companion who had turned out to like her. I did not, of course, tell her about my vampirism. Even inebriated I was not so careless. 

 

We sat on the couch together, as we had so many times before. We tried new names, calling each other by women’s pronouns, and we related on a level we’d never had before, expressing our intense dislike of so many of the things the world had pushed on us, from our enforced masculinity to even our mode of walking and sitting. It was as if we’d been actors in the world’s most repulsive play, playing roles that weren’t ours, or face the wrath of the crowd. The thought of unshackling ourselves from those roles was… ecstasy. Euphoria unmatched. 

 

Into the deep hours of the night, we talked, and we did not realize how close we’d come to sit beside each other. We had done this before, as well, but this felt different. Now that we each saw the other through the lens of who and what we truly were, our relationship dynamic had changed. We were not men relating to one another, we were women, deeply attracted to other women, regardless of what shape they took. I could lie and pretend we did not find one another like two lovers separated by decades. But we did. Our lips were thirsty for one another. We unleashed ourselves onto each other, calling each other by our new, true names in breathless whispers.

 

Elisabeth was smaller than me, always had been, but now that I could see her for what she truly was, she struck me as the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. In our enthusiasm, my sharpened teeth cut her lip, but she did not seem to mind, and the taste of her blood on my lips in our shared kisses only elevated the experience. My head swam with the taste of her. We undressed each other like hapless youngsters, tearing at each other’s clothing with a primal desire.

 

We spent the next week together, finding each other, and ourselves. Sometimes several times a day, in fact. We saw much of each other over the years, but our relationship grew strained. I was to blame. In several ways. 

 

Being the youngest of five children, there were few expectations on her. When she’d talked to her parents of the reality of her existence, there were apprehensive at first, but when she threatened to leave - though where she’d go I didn’t know; I like to think she’d have come to me - her parents eventually were supportive. The condition of women like her were  not unheard of, and chemists had concocted for her several tonics that would slowly help her outside to look like herself on the inside. 

 

When she offered their information to me, I had to graciously decline, stating a familial illness that made me unreceptive to such ministrations. She believed me, though she saw through my next lie, that I would be fine without them. When she pulled me wordlessly in her arms, I cried. I bawled. I wailed, knowing I would never have access to what I needed, that I would forever be stuck in a form that brought me only unhappiness, despite its supposed “perfection". She understood, and did not leave my side for days. They were days filled with pain and kindness, and I think back on them fondly.

 

I left soon after. I told her I’d be back, that I would go and look for alternative solutions to that problem. She supported me wholeheartedly, and I deeply regret lying to her. I loved her dearly, but I needed to change. She couldn’t follow, and I couldn’t stay. Our goodbye lasted for two weeks, and I think, by the end, she knew we’d never see each other again. There was one exception, but by that time she was an old woman. I never did stop loving her. 

 

The voyage away from home was the most melancholy and heartbreaking I’d ever experienced. But I needed to leave. I had to find the solution, and it was out there. I could feel it in my blood. 

 

---

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Amelie sighed. 

 

“Not really, Katherine.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re not at fault here.”

 

“Still. I suggest we end it here, today. You look like you could use the rest.” Katherine stood up. “Did… Elisabeth…”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Was she happy?”

 

“I tell myself she was. She ended up married to some countess. She had a child, a beautiful young woman, if the portraits were anything to go by. She lived a long life.”

 

“Were you?”

 

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Inquisitor.”

 

Katherine solemnly walked to the door.

 

“I’ll ask they loosen your bindings and bring you some… water.”

 

“Make it a live pig. And Katherine…?”

 

The words hung in the air for a moment. Katherine stood paused in the doorway. The air was still.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Listening to you is my duty.”

 

“I’m still grateful.”

 

Katherine smiled that smile again.

 

“It’s my pleasure.”