About the Dawn's Game – Part 3

Once inside the room, I was greeted by another strange sight.

You see, I was apparently invited to have dinner with the owner of the castle so, obviously, the room the blonde haired girl brought me into was a dinner room.

Being a dinner room in a castle owned by a vampire with such a title as Archduchess of Benevolence, the overly long table with a red tablecloth was also expected. In fact, there was nothing out of the "ordinary" provided that we are thinking medieval-ish vampire castle. Well, maybe except the electric chandeliers and the giant air conditioners but that's another story entirely.

No, what surprised me the most the person I saw behind that table, or rather, what she was doing.

Her head was swinging back and forth at irregular intervals. It didn't take much knowledge in physics to tell that the force applied to it would lock her into a set of coordinates describing an arc, and that the only position into which it could reach rest – that is to say, equilibrium between all forces applied to it – was the one into which it would lie on the table. Or, you know, when she would decide to finally find a bed.

"Huh, who is that girl?" I asked to my guide.

"*sigh*"

She only replied with a sigh, shaking her head.

"Follow me, please," she said, going toward the girl.

Though I couldn't follow her even if I wanted to. She was walking too quickly, almost gliding on the floor.

"..."

Correction, she WAS gliding on a sort of dark mist… shadow? Thing. I just assumed that it was something ghouls could do and went with it. Either way, what happened when she arrived at her destination shocked me more.

*bam*

Without warning, the blonde girl hit the back of the other one's head. Her face violently crashed on the table finally reaching equilibrium as gravity won. Newton must have been happy.

"Wake up, teacher, the girl is here," she calmly said after one of the things I was pretty sure no student should ever do to their teacher. Then again, I am mostly not violent.

The girl slowly raised her head from the table. It was a girl with a cleanly cut fringe and dark hair though they looked more bright than Yakatarina's. On each side of her head were long and thin pigtails giving her a bit of a childish air though she was clearly a teenager… a teenager…

"Excuse me," I said, raising my hand, "is this girl your teacher?"

The blonde girl turned to me, "She is. Forgive her she isn't what do they say again ah yes a morning person."

"Slowly, please," I mumbled before continuing. "Huh, so, she is the Archduchess of Benevolence?"

"She is. What about it?"

What about it? I knew I didn't see that many vampires yet but… Yakatarina, Iovanna, Miss Garlic, the motormouth ghoul, and now her. I began asking myself an existential question: Are all vampires teenagers???

"Are all vampires teenagers?" Yes, I needed to ask.

"What are you saying? Teacher has been alive for more than a thousand years," she replied, putting her hands on her hips.

"No, that isn't the issue… or rather, yes, that kinda is the issue…"

"Not alive. Just not quite dead," intervened the teenage-looking thousand years old vampire Archduchess.

With her sleeve-covered hands the girl gently wiped her face before looking at me with gray eyes with slit white pupils. She slightly tilted her head and smiled.

"Welcome to my makeshift castle, Dawn, would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Huh, I… I guess…"

Her sudden familiarity threw me off so I couldn't refuse. Seeming satisfied, she turned to her student.

"Tansy?"

"Pansy."

"Oh? But you did say 'my teacher has been alive for more than a thousand years', did you not? Little Tansy would have said something like 'my teacher might have been alive for more than a thousand years' or 'it seems that my teacher has been alive for more than a thousand years'. Unless she is thinking carefully about what to say, Pansy would never affirm something she can't verify herself."

"Ah, it slipped up," said the girl covering her mouth. "As expected of you teacher, recognizing me even though I did my best to act like Pansy."

The Archduchess rolled her eyes to the left harboring an uneasy smile, "Oh… Ah… What can I say?"

I am the one asking myself what I can say here…

"Teacher… there are more important things that must be discussed," said Tansy pouring me a cup of coffee. "Would you like some milk with it? Cookies?"

"Huh, yes."

The Archduchess of Benevolence turned to me, raising her hand-covered sleeve to indicate the chair at her left.

"Take place, do take place. I have a lot to discuss with you. I will not ask you to not be nervous but I would like you to ignore nervousness for the time being."

"..."

Silently, I sat where she indicated while her student started preparing a cup for her. As she surmised I was extremely nervous, nervous enough to think about what to say for minutes and minutes, something that wasn't helped by the fact she was staring at me the whole time. It was her that finally broke the silence when her student came back with a cup of dark liquid smelling of coffee.

"Let's start with the presentation, shall we? My name is Lore A. Lua but I am also known as the Archduchess of Benevolence. My height is around 1.68 m without my boots, my weight is around 48 kg which means I am lighter than a common cement bag. My three sizes are a secret but you can see I have not much for myself except my pretty face, I do have confidence in my hips though."

"Huh…"

"My age too is a secret – there are many reasons for that, but the most important is that it is a bit embarrassing to talk about," she added, scratching the back of her head. "My favorite fruits are bananas though I cannot really eat them properly anymore. My favorite dish is that thing witches call spaghetti-egg which is simply an omelet with spaghetti inside. I personally refer to it as the cheapest way to eat a whole chicken with spaghetti, though I can't eat it properly either."

"Right…"

"My favorite number is 10. My favorite days are Wednesday and the reasons for that are numerous. My least favorite day is Sunday because vampire hunters using a certain faith as their weapons tend to attack and being more powerful on such days. Oh, I also think that as the last day of the week, it fails at being a proper weekend's day. Having to work the following day… *sigh* Forcing an elderly to work like a corporate slave just because she is the 'strongest' vampire of her bloodline, young people are merciless…"

"Teacher, you are rambling," calmly reminded her student.

"Oh, yes, I digress," she said, taking her cup of coffee in her sleeve-covered hands and drinking it in one go. "You might know this already but this charming girl here is one of my students. Her name is Tansy Wormwood and she is one the current vampire dukes under me though she is probably stronger than I am. She isn't much better in body shape than I though."

Her student glared at her while pouring another cup of that dark liquid to her teacher. Taking the now full cup in her hands, the seemingly young woman avoided her student gaze and drank all her coffee in a single move.

"That is everything I can think of at the moment. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer," she ended up saying.

"Huh…"

Of course, I had no idea what to ask. While she was smiling and being incredibly casual, I couldn't help but find her unnerving for some reason. Was it because she was a ghoul too? I couldn't help but think that her familiarity was hiding something else. That and I was finding her way of presenting herself entertaining but quite unsuited to myself.

That being said, I had to say something or there wouldn't be much of a discussion. I didn't know what to ask her for on a personal level but there was something I wondered about for a moment there so I had to bring it up.

"Isn't Yakatarina doing… Huh, I mean, what is Yakatarina doing now?"

"Katrina?" she asked, taking another cup of coffee in her hands. "She is crushing the other castles to find you. It won't be long before she finds us, I am afraid."

I furrowed my eyebrows, "Crushing?"

"Yes, I can hear her from here. It seems she is aware you aren't into the other castles so she doesn't bother controlling her strength."

"She can... crush castles at her best?" I asked.

The young woman shook her head, "We are Archdukes and Archduchesses, the pinnacle of vampirism. Crushing castles is far under our capacities. If two Archdukes were to fight seriously, it could easily wipeout a town."

"Is... that so?"

I couldn't help but doubt that knowing I successfully shot one of those.

"Yes. Those of the rank of Archdukes are barely human though I can't understand why YAKATARINA seems to be steadily advancing towards here.

"Maybe she drank her blood?" asked Tansy, pouring her another cup.

The Archduchess of Benevolence took the cup and emptied it again.

"No, I don't think so," she said, putting the cup down. "Regardless, we don't have all night. I pains me, but I will have to be direct."

She closed her eyes for a second and turned to me.

"Dawn, how do you feel about YAKATARINA?"