Lauren walked next to Kay as they headed for the room that'd been set aside for Alice. Kay's normal contingent of guards was slightly reduced as per his mandate that he didn't need a full set of bodyguards while they were in his palace, and the Blood Guard controlled almost every aspect of the security. They were still covered in the normal crimson armor formed with Blood Manipulation and Blood Shaping, which made them look like identical faceless red golems marching about. They were even creepier than Kay's own simulacra he made since those at least had some semblance of facial features. His guards looked like implacable juggernauts formed into simple yet intimidating shape out of an unknown crimson material. Looking at the red sheen of the armor as the Blood Guard patrolled, stood sentry, or just walked around, it was difficult to tell that their arms and armor were made out of blood if you didn't know better. They were made even more intimidating by their identical form, barring height for a few exceptionally tall or short members, and any enemy couldn't know who they were attacking until they decided to do it, making planning counters much harder since while each Guard had shared Skills, all of them having at minimum Blood Shaping and Blood Manipulation, they all had their own skill sets to compliment their shared abilities, making some nasty combinations. The best part of all of it was that even if one Blood Guard actually preferred lighter armor compared to the heavy plate-like version they were currently in, they could just shift it mid-combat to suit their needs.

While Kay was used to the expressionless figures following him around, seeing Lauren out of her armor was refreshing. She was currently on leave, and Kay was going to insist that she take another week off minimum, whether she liked it or not. Thankfully she hadn't argued at all when he'd originally forced her into taking a vacation after their shared ordeal, but she'd recently stopped doing vacation things and had started to act like she expected to get back to work soon. The fact that she had subordinates who were both experienced and trustworthy had helped her be at ease with taking leave, but apparently, that ease was coming to an end. Kay thought of Lauren as a friend as well as the leader of his personal troops, and he was both proud of and in awe of how well she'd done at building up the organization of the Blood Guard after he'd stolen her away from her previous life of being an adventurer. And while he knew being part of a rapidly growing city-state that was going to transition into a nation relatively soon meant no one near the top really had time for breaks, he personally thought that being attacked by a vampyr and being turned into a vampire deserved more than just two or three weeks off. The fact that as leader of said city-state, they couldn't afford for him to take some time off, and he wanted to live vicariously through Lauren had no bearing on his as-of-yet unsuccessful attempts to convince her to stay away from work for a little longer.

"How's she been?" Kay asked, glancing over at Lauren.

"It's been…" She pulled a pensive face, "She's not really opening up to me, which isn't surprising, but things have been cordial. She's been appreciative of the information I've passed on about what we've learned about our new species," She reached up and absentmindedly tapped one of her fangs that descended for a second, "She's taken it pretty hard, though. She's been putting on a brave face when anyone is around, but I can tell it's shaken her."

"I'm not surprised, she's part of a group that hunts vampyr, and now she's been turned into something that is at least visually incredibly similar. I'd be taking it pretty hard too."

Lauren stared at him out of the side of her eye, "…Honestly, I'm not sure why you aren't taking it harder than you are. I've had some bad moments here and there, and I've had you to lean on. You've had to be the strong person for me; you haven't had anyone."

Kay shot her a somewhat sad somewhat amused grin, "I already had my entire life as I know it uprooted and turned on its head less than three years ago, and I've had to rebuild basically my whole existence. This?" He gestured at his body, "This is just a new twist. And it doesn't hurt that I actually have some level of information about what vampires are." He admitted, "The two of you are coming at this with only one comparison, and it's a pretty shit one."

"Ah…" She stopped for a moment, then took a larger step to keep up, "You know, it's kind of hard to remember that you're an outworlder all the time. You're just part of my life at this point. Well, no, that's not really what I mean, is it? I remember that you're from another world; you mention ideas or words or concepts I've never heard of enough that you can't really forget, but I never really think about how… well, fucked up that must have been for you."

"Good!" Kay grinned at her, and this time it was entirely amused, "I've worked hard at adapting and getting used to my new life, and it's one of the things I've tried to put behind me, like bitching all the time about being in charge."

"Thank you for doing that last one; it was getting annoying."

Kay was going to snark back at her, mostly about how she was becoming one of the snarky people he relied on her to defend him from when he heard shouting coming from the direction they were headed in. Frowning, he picked up the pace.

Outside of the door to Alice Ravenhome's room was a diminutive woman wearing Shatterplate order armor. She was in the midst of pounding on the door and shouting into it, with one of Kay's Blood Guard trying to calm her down. The Blood Guard, who was the woman's escort, had his faceless helmet pulled back into his armor so Kay could see the nervous look on his face as they approached.

"Alice, you open this fucking door right this instant, or I will beat it down!"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Ma'am! I can't let you beat down any doors in here!"

She whirled on the Guard, "Is that so? Then open this fucking door for me!" She punched it once, then pointed at the lock.

"Hunter Ravenhome has been given this room as her own for the duration," The Guard replied, pulling himself up in an attempt to be stern, "She has every right to privacy within her own room, and I won't be opening it for you without her permission. If she doesn't want to see you, she doesn't want to see you."

"Then I'm breaking the fucker down!" She took several steps back and prepared to rush forward.

The Guard braced himself to interrupt the charge but instead stiffened to attention when he saw Kay. "My lord!"

Kay nodded in acknowledgment to him, then looked at the woman, "What, exactly, is going on here?"

"My lord-"

"So you're the Lord here then?" The woman was suddenly in Kay's face, peering at his eyes and mouth, "Interesting, there are a number of immediately identifiable signs that you're displaying, but the eyes are quite different, and I don't see any pronounced veins. Of course, those aren't always present, so- No, wait!" She jerked back out of Kay's space before he could move her or step back himself, and she pointed at the door, "Alice is more important than research at the moment. Let me in to see her!"

At this point, Kay recognized the small half-elf woman as one of Alice's command staff from her hunting team, although he hadn't had a chance to actually meet any of them. "I'm here to have a conversation with Hunter Ravenhome. If she'd like to speak to you, then I'll obviously not get in the way of that, but I'm not going to be making her do anything or opening her door to you without permission."

She scowled up at him, "That isn't the answer I want from you. But I also appreciate that you're treating her well, so I'll accept it. For now!" She stepped off to the side, out of the line of sight from the door, and stopped nearby. The Guard escorting her cautiously followed.

Kay knocked on the door, ignoring the passionate stare from the woman.

"Will you please go away, Zeia?" Alice called from inside, "I'm not really feeling like having company right now."

"I'd appreciate it if you overcame that feeling for a little bit so we can talk now that I'm free, although I won't force you into anything, so I can come back later. This is Kay, by the way, not Zeia. She is still here, though."

After a moment of silence, the door swung open. Alice was dressed in normal-looking clothes, although now that he had more experience, he could tell it was clothing that was designed to be worn underneath her armor. Her dark brown bordering on black hair used to blend nicely with her tawny skin, but now it contrasted with her paler color. You could still tell what her skin had originally looked like, but there was just less color to it now as if some of it had been leached away. Her eyes hadn't changed color, but they did have a faint sheen to them that Kay recognized from the mirror, and oddly enough, she smelled familiar. One of the things he'd noticed after his change was his heightened senses, including smell, and Alice smelled… like family? It was the only way he could think of to describe the scent, and he realized now that Lauren smelled the same way. It was a faint addition to their individual scents that stood out to him. For a moment, Kay wondered if it was how the version of vampires they had become could identify their vampiric relations.

Before either of them could say anything, Zeia pushed past him in a blur, taking him off guard and knocking him into the door jam as she slammed into Alice with speed as she wrapped her up in a tight hug.

"Are you alright? Have you been eating well? Has anyone been giving you trouble? Are they treating you alright? Everything I've seen so far makes me think that these are alright people, but that's no guarantee! Why haven't you come to see us?"

"Zeia."

"Why haven't you let us come see you? I know everyone else is freaking out, but me and Dan have been trying to visit you for days, and you keep sending us away!"

"Zeia!" Alice pushed her back and held her at arm's length, "Calm down!"

"I will not!" Zeia glared back at her, "I've been worried about you! Something horrible happened to you, except it didn't, and now things are all weird! And you wouldn't let me see you!"

Alice shut her eyes, "I didn't… It's… Gah! Things are already fucked up, and I don't know what to do or what's going to happen. I couldn't deal if anyone if you looked at me like…"

Zeia jerked back, offended, "You thought I'd look at you like a monster? You thought I would? That-"

"I look like a fucking vampyr!" She snapped, "I look almost exactly like the monsters we have trained to hunt and kill, and I… I don't know what to do! Everything has fallen out from under me and-"

"So you were worried I'd what, let logic go out the window and-"

"I thought you'd do the perfectly reasonable thing and think that I was trying to fool you, or that they were trying to fool you," She threw an arm out in Kay's direction, "And that I was a pawn or whatever. This is brand new; it's literally never happened before. I have no doubt that people, our people, are going to think that it hasn't happened and will come for me. That…” She trailed off, and Kay could see tears start to come to her eyes.

"Fuck… Alice, you can't think…"

"I can! It's the obvious thing to do. Do you really think after all this time, after all those hunts across all those years, that he would just believe in this miracle without actually seeing it?"

"So we just have to show him then!"

"How? When? And how can we do it fast enough in the brief window we'll have?"

They stared at each other, Alice demanding an answer and Zeia searching for one.

"I'm sorry."

Both of them jumped, taken out of their private world by Kay's interruption.

"I don't want to intrude on what's becoming a private conversation, so I can come back later."

"No." Alice shook her head. She let go of Zeia and looked away for a moment to wipe her eyes. "We need to talk. We really need to talk about more than one thing. And most of what we just said is going to be your problem, too, if I'm right, so let's talk." She looked from Kay to Lauren and sighed, "Everything's gone sideways in such a short time." She muttered.

"I'm coming too!" Zeia insisted, glaring at Kay.

Alice sighed again and shrugged at him, "It'd be helpful if you'll allow it."

"I don't have a problem with you coming," Kay replied to Zeia's demand. In reality, he kind of didn't want to have her along, but he also wasn't going to make things harder on Alice. Plus, he was interested in what they'd just been talking about since he was pretty sure it intersected directly with more than one topic he wanted to discuss. If bringing this intense half-elf along made that easier, he'd ignore his own preferences. "We can go to my office to talk if that's alright? It's a better setting than your bedroom for this."