So, nothing then. [Managing to summon up a half grin, even if it doesn't sit easily on her lips. She could stop now, find some lie to feed to Peter, but not only does she want somebody to talk to about all this, she actually wants that somebody to be him.

The image on his screen jostles as Rose reaches for her device, fumbling with it as she tries to change their conversation to private the way Simon had tried more than once to show her. It fails, of course, but she doesn't realize that as she sets it back down.]

Almost nothing anyway. [Her smile becoming more of a grimace.] The whole, Vampire with a soul thing? I wanna say it's a load of crap but... There is a race of Vampires known as the Moroi. They're born, not made and they're gentle.

[Well, that was debatable. They weren't killers but she'd met her fair share of asshole Moroi in her life.]

And they're in danger of becoming extinct because of another race of Vampires we call Strigoi. Moroi blood makes a Strigoi stronger, faster, harder to kill so they hunt them.

[Rose likes to imagine that somewhere, one of her teachers is impressed that she really did pay attention in class. Of course, this was just the kind of thing that people like her grew up knowing. Bedtime stories in the Moroi world weren't suitable for most children, not that Rose had ever been read one.]

There is a third race, though. Half Moroi, half human. We're called Dhampir and we're raised to become Guardians. We're what stands between the Moroi and extinction, for both our races.

[He'd see now as he looks at his screen, a tension radiating through her body, a look of apprehension that comes with waiting for fear or rejection.]