Had the grey eyed boy come out just to cause trouble?
Ellis stood, pouting, and sulked his way into Nia's room, banging the door as loudly as he could before he strode inside like he owned the place.
The girl jumped about ten feet in the air and whirled around, holding her recently removed nightgown against her chest. At least she'd had time to get her pants on.
"Don't you ever knock?!" She shrieked, face red as her hair.
Ellis only giggled, poking at her exposed neck, "Your neck turns pink too."
She glared at him furiously, clutching nightgown tighter to her body, "Get out of here, right this second!"
He was suddenly on his knees on front her, grabbing her hips and pushing her nightgown away, a strange and tender light behind his eyes, "Lemme see what’s going on here."
Nia almost fainted.
Ellis, unfortunately, noticed – though not in the way Nia thought.
"Does it still hurt?" He whispered worriedly, soft and perfect fingers running over the pink tinted bandages wrapped tight around her abdomen.
So that's what he was talking about.
Nia had never felt so embarrassed of herself – at least Ellis didn't know what she thought he had been referring to.
"You can go ahead and finish changing," Ellis murmured, staring up at Nia, still very tenderly, "It's not like I'm interested in seeing you naked anyways."
The redhead's mouth dropped open, glaring at him with a fiery fury that could have struck fear in a blind man.
It was his cue to leave. So the vampire did, as quickly as possible.
This time Nana was walking through the living room, on her way to the kitchen.
Ellis followed her like a curious, and very bored, puppy, "Whatcha doin', lady?"
"I'm going to start preparing dinner." She replied lightly, "I'd assume you want some kind of meat, right? With Nia, vegetables are always in abundance, so we usually just have those."
He nodded, sliding up onto a counter and watching, “Don’t bother cooking it, I’ll just have it raw.”
He was beginning to feel the peckings of blood thirst in his core. Though, animal blood was hardly a replacement for human blood. He was pretty sure he could find an unsuspecting villager to come under his thrall for a bit anyways. He highly doubted, however, that anyone under this roof would approve of such action.
"When are you two leaving?" Nana asked casually, flipping grey hair off her shoulder as she pulled a few carrots out of a basket on the counter and began to chop them.
"What do you mean?" He asked, uneasy.
He didn't want to seem rude, appearing for a few days then taking off again. And this ‘we’ business, what was that about?
"I know my Nia," She answered, flashing a knowing grin, "and I'd like to think I've learned a bit about you as well, Mister Vampire. And I know that you two aren't the type to sit around doing nothing for very long."
Ellis chuckled, shaking his head, "I'm hoping that to leave tomorrow evening."
Nana nodded, "I’m sure I can point you in the right direction. Though, Nia knows the trails better than anyone."
Ellis ignored her comment for now, snatching a slice of carrot greedily from the cutting board.
"About Nia's soul. There are few ways that it can be transmuted back into the body." Nana continued, not looking up from her work.
Ellis perked up, tilting his head curiously and watching her while munching noisily on his carrot. Though not as good as potatoes, they would do.
"First, the proximity to her, with each breath you berate, a fragment of her soul is exuded. If your nearby, it quickly enters Nia, but if you are far, the piece of her soul may get lost and, without a home, die – which causes her pain.” For a second the old woman hesitated, glancing towards him, “Of course you'll be in pain all the time because you have someone else's spiritual being inside you. But I'm sure you've noticed that already."
He nodded again mutely, trying to look as though he was still listening as he scanned the kitchen for potatoes. His body didn't hurt too badly, he'd gotten more or less used to the discomfort.
"The soul may cause you to act funny in desperate attempts to get back to her, but if it hasn't done anything so far I think you should be fine. Thankfully, it hasn't made you too ill either." The old woman tossed the chopped up carrots into a simmering pot.
Ellis smiled comfortingly, "Nope. Hasn't done a thing."
She nodded approvingly, tossing him a small potato that she watched him eye, "It should be over soon, Nia is healing very nicely. Though George may be just an illusionist, he did seem to give her an antibiotic."
He shrugged, eyes only on the vegetable of the gods he held in his hands, stuffing the potato into his mouth so his cheeks puffed like a hamster and heading back to Nia's room.