Even though Jeanne spoke with absolute ease and lacked the slightest hint of hostility, Warfarin still subconsciously shuffled a few inches further down the seat, her mouth clamped shut as her mind spun through uncharted thoughts.
Even when Jeanne settled completely into the space beside her and the vehicle lurched forward to begin its transit across the frontier, the vampire physician remained frozen. She looked like an individual who hadn't fully processed her lingering shock, sitting perfectly rigid like a statue.
Watching her state of total paralysis, Jeanne felt entirely at a loss. She briefly considered asking the driver if they could swap places just so she could pilot the transport herself and spare the poor medic any further psychological torment.
Jeanne stared at the quiet Sarkaz, wondering if she had somehow managed to traumatize her during a past encounter. Or had she perhaps experienced a bout of sleepwalking on the landship and unknowingly tried to execute a holy purification ritual on the vampire?
Eventually, Warfarin successfully dragged her consciousness out of the panic induced by Jeanne. The frozen lines of her face softened into a more standard human expression, and she abandoned her defensive posture in the far corner of the cabin.
With her mental clarity restored, her notoriously boundless curiosity immediately flared back to life. Her eyes drifted downward, anchoring onto little Fafnir, who was sitting quietly by Jeanne's side. The vampire looked... exceptionally captivated.
Naturally, Fafnir was a subject of profound scholarly interest to her. During her past theoretical discussions with the Doctor, Warfarin had been briefed on the young creature's true mythological origin. As a dedicated researcher, she was burning with a desire to step closer and map out the biological mechanisms of an authentic dragon.
Granted, while she was undeniably eccentric, she wasn't entirely suicidal. An ancient apex predator was fundamentally beyond the research capabilities of a lone Vampire, and she deeply desired to sustain her own vital signs for a few centuries more!
At the very least, she wanted to survive long enough to see if she could outlive that ancient, insufferable relic who governed her entire sub-race. Though she recognized the ambition lacked structural reality, the simple thought of that old tyrant triggered a sudden inspiration...
Warfarin's face instantly lit up with intense curiosity. She whipped her head around to face Jeanne, discarding all reservations as she leaned across the aisle to investigate.
"Hey, that reminds me! Word on the street is that the head of our bloodline took an absolute, historic beating over in Ursus. The old monster was reportedly broken so thoroughly he barely escaped with his life. That was your handiwork, wasn't it?"
Warfarin had long been aware that Kal'tsit had originally escorted Jeanne back from the snowy wilderness of Ursus, but she had never gotten around to verifying if this gentle girl was the legendary warrior who had nearly put an end to the Grand Duke's eternal existence.
Despite their shared Sarkaz blood, Warfarin harbored zero personal affection for the Sanguinarch. Still, when her contacts within the court whispered that the Duke had been brought so close to the brink of absolute deletion that his return to the collective hive was considered a miracle, she had been profoundly stunned.
Jeanne looked back at her, offering a slow, measured nod. "Assuming he wasn't intercepted by an entirely separate party on his retreat, then yes... I am the one who executed that sequence."
Receiving a direct confirmation, Warfarin's eyes widened to a comical degree. She stared at Jeanne in absolute silence for a massive interval, completely paralyzed by the realization, before a sudden, ecstatic gasp broke the quiet.
"Holy... how on Terra did you pull that off?! Is there a specific methodology or tactical framework you can teach me? I need to master a few of those tricks! That way, the next time I run into those insufferable aristocrats from my bloodline, I'll possess a definitive solution to keep them from tormenting me..."
Warfarin displayed zero hesitation when it came to plotting the literal downfall of her own kin, completely unbothered by the taboo of discussing localized civil war in front of outsiders.
"The process is actually remarkably straightforward: you simply utilize holy water," Jeanne explained, her voice carrying an ease that suggested she was describing a standard trip to a grocery store, yet the contents left Warfarin's heart hammering against her ribs. "You smash the glass vial directly against their skull. After that, it doesn't matter what manner of ancient fiend or mythological nightmare you are dealing with; they will invariably choose to settle down into absolute quiet. Or rather, I will personally assist them in finding that quiet."
"Hiss—heavens! That is remarkably brutal!" Warfarin sucked in a sharp, cold breath as her mind vividly rendered the terrifying image of the grand Sanguinarch being subjected to such an unceremonious, concussive assault. "Even standard execution protocols don't sound that savage!"
Jeanne stared at the complaining medic, feeling completely vindicated yet slightly exasperated. Was it truly that unhinged? Besides, when all was said and done, she hadn't actually sent their precious Grand Duke to the afterlife, had she?
"Though... I must admit, I absolutely love it!" Warfarin erupted into a sudden, chaotic laugh before Jeanne could even voice a defense.
Her rapid shift left Jeanne entirely speechless. She would never truly comprehend the labyrinthine, often toxic interpersonal relationships that governed the Sarkaz race.
Without a shred of delay, Warfarin produced a leather-bound journal and a stylus, aggressively interrogating Jeanne for every minute detail of the encounter, looking exactly like a hyper-focused academic grilling a senior professor over the results of a historic laboratory trial.
Jeanne couldn't begin to fathom what internal trauma had driven this woman to pursue a secondary career path as a consecrated Vampire hunter. Was her relationship with her own bloodline so thoroughly broken that she felt compelled to cross-class into a holy warrior just to secure a basic baseline of self-defense?
"You simply don't understand the reality of my situation! Virtually every single individual in my family line is a complete psychiatric anomaly!" Warfarin whined, her expression twisting into a dramatic caricature of profound suffering as if she were a victim of centuries of systemic domestic abuse. Her performance was so remarkably pitiable that Jeanne felt a faint wave of parental sympathy well up, wondering if the poor girl had truly survived some horrific torment in her youth. "That old relic at the top is the absolute worst of the lot! I am merely trying to acquire some basic martial skills to guarantee my personal safety!"
"I suppose I can allocate some time to test the theory later," Jeanne sighed, watching the desperate physician. The concept of a Vampire successfully weaponizing consecrated holy water was honestly starting to fascinate her. If they actually managed to pull off this biological anomaly, would she technically be rewriting the history books of Terra? "But you must manage your expectations. That substance possesses an incredibly high destructive quotient against your specific physiology. I suspect the probability of you safely utilizing holy water as a conventional weapon is exceptionally low, so please don't be too disheartened when the trial fails..."
Securing Jeanne's conditional agreement was all Warfarin needed to declare absolute victory. She promptly snapped her journal shut and redirected her entire, unyielding focus back onto Fafnir, staring at the little creature as if she were a priceless, uncatalogued artifact.
The sudden shift to that intense, predatory gaze instantly triggered Fafnir's defensive instincts. The young dragon scrambled backward, attempting to anchor herself behind Jeanne's torso, though the modest barrier did little to break the vampire's line of sight.
"Jeanne, is this individual a villain? Am I authorized to strike her?" Fafnir inquired flatly. Far from lowering her voice to a discreet whisper, she issued the question with absolute clarity, her words echoing through the entire transport cabin.
Jeanne looked at the eccentric medic whose scientific curiosity routinely overrode her survival instincts. Part of her spirit desperately wanted to tell Fafnir that she had absolute authorization to execute a swift physical correction, but she firmly suppressed the uncharitable thought before it could manifest.
"This big sister simply suffers from a slight cognitive affliction," Jeanne comforted softly, reaching back to soothe the young dragon while shooting a sharp, warning glare at Warfarin to make her pull back her intense gaze.
Honestly, you claim to be terrified of this child's catastrophic physical output, yet your instinct to court death is so absolute. No wonder Kal'tsit treats disciplining you as a standard, daily clock-in routine.
Warfarin, however, was a veteran when it came to managing hostile test subjects. Reaching into the deep folds of her laboratory coat, she extracted a handful of brightly wrapped confections, presenting them to Fafnir with a wide, aggressively friendly smile that was clearly designed to buy her affection.
"My cognitive faculties are functioning flawlessly, I assure you! Hello there, little girl, what might your name be? Would you care to share it with this sister? I possess a massive reserve of highly delicious treats right here, would you like one?..."
Her execution was spectacular—she looked precisely like a classic, unhinged kidnapper attempting to coax a child into a vehicle, executing the felony right in front of the primary guardian with an absolute, terrifying level of audacity!
For a dragon like Fafnir, whose sensory capabilities were uniquely attuned to the subtle shifts of the souls around her, the medic's underlying schemes were practically written in bold print across her features. Consequently, she refused to stretch out her hand to accept the offering.
Yet, a profound sense of confusion locked up Fafnir's primitive thoughts. Even though her instincts registered that the vampire was harboring an underlying motive, she detected absolutely zero intent to inflict physical harm or malice. It was a deeply complex, contradictory emotional spectrum that her simple mind lacked the capacity to unpack.
Fafnir turned her eyes up to Jeanne, silently petitioning her guardian for a definitive directive. Should she deliver a swift physical strike, or was she authorized to accept the confections?
Clearly, the allure of physical sustenance remained an incredibly potent variable for the young dragon. Especially when it came to artificial sweets, the temptation was intense enough to plunge her into a state of deep, agonizing hesitation.
"You haven't introduced any foreign chemical compounds or sedative agents into those, have you?" Jeanne inquired, her skepticism flaring. She vividly recalled the Doctor mentioning that while Warfarin drew a firm ethical line at unauthorized live dissections, her reckless curiosity frequently drove her to execute incredibly impulsive, unthinking stunts.
Spiking a colleague's meal with high-grade sleeping drafts was definitely within her established behavioral parameters.
"That is an absolute slander! These are my personal emergency rations!" Warfarin protested frantically, her defense immediate. "I carry them on my person strictly to counter sudden drops in blood sugar whenever I neglect my standard meal schedule! Furthermore, I had zero foreknowledge that the two of you would be boarding this specific transport today, so how could I have possibly prepared a targeted sedative?"
Her denial rang true enough. Her core objective was simply to establish a stable friendship with Fafnir—ideally securing a pathway to eventually obtain a minute sample of her blood. After all, in her centuries of medical practice, she had never once sampled the flavor profile of an ancient draconic bloodline.
Jeanne maintained a healthy degree of suspicion as she reached out to intercept the confection. She unwrapped the treat and consumed it herself, verifying through her own senses that it lacked any hostile properties, before finally transferring the remaining pieces to the waiting, wide-eyed dragon.
The moment the sweet flavor dissolved across her palate, Fafnir's hostility evaporated, replaced by absolute bliss as she began to happily munch away.
Seeing her opening, Warfarin immediately initiated a relentless, high-volume feeding campaign, systematically deploying her entire sugary arsenal to cement her status as Fafnir's favorite provider. Watching the mountain of wrappers pile up, Jeanne couldn't help but wonder if the vampire's initial claims of innocence had been an absolute lie all along.