Check Up Over

She whined loudly and rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.

She wanted something to do. This waiting was torture.

"How old're you?" she asked, her question muffled slightly by the pillow

"Six hundred and eighty five, and yourself?"
He replied, his eyebrow raising at the rather out of the blue question.
Though perhaps a little game of twenty questions would sooth her impatience for a short while.

"Ehh... Just over four and a half thousand, I think." She never kept tabs on her age. She had guesstimated using modern technology and dating.

"Were you once human?"

20Q would keep her occupied. Hopefully.

He nodded softly at her second question.
"Still am, just a human who knows a few tricks."
He said with a chuckle.

"Pureblood vampire or turned?"
He asked, strongly suspecting the first option.

She nodded.

"Dhampir." Neither Pureblood or turned. She didn't fit in with either which was a real pain for her. "Human on my mother's side."

"How old are you physically?"

"Twenty eight."
He answered with a nod, it took some effort to remember that one.

He chuckled softly at her answer, he had not thought of that, made sense though considering her age.

"And you?"
He asked, a small smile gracing his face.

"Uh... At a guess, early twenties. Twenty two, twenty three?"

She had no way whatsoever of estimating that one. Her little settlement had no way of monitoring time. They just knew when summer and winter were coming around.

And she hadn't looked at herself often so she couldn't say how many winters she had had before she stopped ageing.

"Have you always lived on land?"

He nodded,
"Yes, always on land, I have not left Italy, my research has kept me quite still."
He said with a chuckle, most residence here were very worldly.

"Where in the world have you been? Or a better question, where haven't you been?"

Her mouth flapped open then she pursed her lips.

"Couldn't tell you. I've been so many places that I forget half of them. Some of them have been renamed since I last visited them." Some of them had actually been named since she last visited them.

"It's safe to say I've been most places."

She pursed her lips. "You're very pale for an Italian." His skin was far less tan than hers and she was only half Italian. "Do you spend a lot of time out of the sun?"

"No, I don't spend any time in the sun, not any more.
After the Vatican found out about my research they have tried to have me killed so I have spent most of my time hidden away."

He answered with a shrug.

"Why did you start this coven?"

"That must be terrible. I can't stand being restricted to only the night."

She hated it when she couldn't go out in the night. They had been the worst years of her life.

Why did she start the coven...? "Because I was lonely; I wanted a family." A family that she couldn't have herself, so she had settled for collecting together people she could call her family.

"Why did you decide to join the coven?"

"Finding a safe place to work on my tan."
He said with an amused chuckle.
"I was looking for like minded people to assist me in finishing my research, already I have come so far with it in my short stay, I managed to piece my body back together after all."

He looked up at the clock, thirty seconds until the hour, a smile spread across his face.

She gave a quiet chuckle. "You have free reign of the gardens to work on your tan. I'd really put some effort into it; its insulting to have an Italian so pale." She grinned at him.

Her eyes turned to the clock and she grinned widely. "Finally."

Her gaze stayed on the clock, watching the second hand turn.

It hit the hour.

Thirty seconds past.

A minute past.

"Where are they?" she hissed.

He chuckled softly an shook his head.
"If it insults madam then I shall endeavour to right this wrong."

He shook his head.
"You can never find good help these days."

Her lips quirked upwards a little.

"I'm going to have to have a word with the faces about this. On the hour, not a few minutes past the hour..."

She gave a little growl. She was getting even more impatient.

Artemis gave an amused chuckle.

"Uh oh I think someone is in big trouble.
Nice battle with blood poisoning should be punishment enough I suspect."

He said with a grin, he could be such a gentleman at the best of times but he had little empathy for his test subjects, he had gone through so many of them.

"For this one, yes. But I'll have to gather the others and have a talk with them later."

She wouldn't tolerate her servants being less than perfect with what they did. If one was late, they'd all suffer.

The woman pushed her long curly hair back over her shoulders with pursed lips. "This one's going to have a less than pleasant experience. I wonder how long it'll take for them to die naturally..." Probably not long. They'd get hit with two thousand years worth of poisoning at once.

Artemis tapped his chin thinking it over.
"I suspect death will be instant after the last of the poisoning is transfered.
The human body would not be able to handle even a small amount of vampyric blood poisoning for very long."

Humans were indeed frail, if he had not warped his body with alchemy even trying to pass the poison through his body would prove deadly.
Thankfully he would come out of this fine.

She shook her head. "Nu-uh. The faces aren't human. They're vampires. The oldest a few hundred years old."

They were all people she had picked up in her more recent years. People that had nothing else to life for that she had given a purpose to. Serve her.

And they had all done just that. Without question, they did everything she asked of them.

She had never had humans servants. Humans were far too frail to deal with her demands.

"I see, in that case, I'd give it a day, maybe two before death."

He said with a soft nod.

((The servants speech will be in white when she speaks))

"That should be long enough to teach the others a lesson."

The door to the infirmary creaked open and a small woman with pale skin, dark hair and wide green eyes looked in. Her eyes widened further when they settled on Giacinto and she bowed low, muttering a greeting in Irish.

Giacinto crooked her finger, responding in the same tongue.

The woman padded forwards obediently, sliding onto the bed and curling in the woman's arms, nuzzling against her. The older woman pulled the woman closer, resting her chin on the top of the woman's head.

"Artemis, this is Siobhan. She'll be the one we'll be using."