The Divergence

Lavinia tugged at the sleeve of her dress, pulling the black fabric snugly over her wrist while staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. 

Her empty red eyes slowly traveled downward, moving from her face to her shoulders, then farther along the familiar shape of her body before eventually returning to her reflection.

She hardly found herself lingering in front of mirrors anymore.

There had been a brief period after the First Divergence when she'd expected that seeing herself might feel strange. 

She had spent twenty odd years as a man, after all. 

Logically, looking into a mirror and finding a beautiful woman staring back at her should have required considerably more adjustment than it actually had.

Yet there was no disconnect.

Lavinia didn't look at the mirror and expect to find the man she'd once been staring back at her. 

She expected golden hair, dark skin, pointed ears, and those perfectly empty red eyes that marked her as unmistakably vampiric. 

She expected the slender figure beneath her black gothic dress, the delicate facial features, and the faint glimpse of sharp teeth whenever her lips parted.

It had been like that almost from the beginning.

The first time she'd properly seen herself after becoming a vampire, there had certainly been surprise. 

Anyone would have been surprised after waking up in a completely different body, but that surprise hadn't turned into discomfort. 

She hadn't spent the following days reaching for a face that wasn't there or feeling that the reflection belonged to somebody else.

It was simply her.

Being a man before didn't affect her much at all now.

Technically, she was female, or at least close enough that arguing otherwise would become an exercise in semantics, but even that distinction had surprisingly little practical importance to her. 

She couldn't become pregnant. She wouldn't have children naturally. 

She didn't experience periods, hormonal cycles, or most of the biological processes that would have made the physical difference between her old and new bodies considerably more intrusive.

Her body didn't even function like a human woman's body.

She had no heartbeat.

She didn't breathe unless she wanted to speak, smell something more deliberately, or simply felt like doing it out of old habit. 

Her body remained at roughly ambient temperature unless something external warmed it. 

Food was entertainment rather than sustenance, sleep came with the sun rather than exhaustion, and blood was the only thing she genuinely required.

Calling herself a woman wasn't wrong, but calling herself human certainly would have been.

Lavinia tilted her head as she considered herself from another angle.

Besides, if she were calculating purely in terms of benefits and disadvantages, there wasn't much to complain about. 

She was vastly stronger than she'd been as a human man. Faster too. 

Injuries that would once have sent her to a hospital disappeared in seconds or minutes, and diseases that could have killed her no longer mattered at all.

She could fly.

That one alone felt unfairly weighted in favor of vampirism.

And unless somebody killed her, she could potentially live forever.

Lavinia's lips slowly curled upward.

When she laid everything out like that, being upset about the shape of her body would have felt almost petty.

Her fingers rose to her cheek, and she traced the smooth skin downward until the tip of one finger reached the corner of her lips. 

Lavinia pulled her upper lip back slightly, examining her teeth before deliberately extending her fangs.

The change was subtle.

Her canines lengthened, becoming much more pronounced as their sharp tips descended. 

They were the most obvious teeth when a vampire fed, but Lavinia had discovered fairly quickly that the rest of their teeth weren't exactly human either. Every tooth was sharp to varying degrees. 

Not ridiculously so, and certainly not enough that smiling automatically made them look like sharks, but there was very little about a vampire's mouth actually designed for chewing plants.

The fangs simply did most of the work.

They created the deepest punctures, opening the largest wounds and allowing blood to flow freely, while the surrounding teeth sank more shallowly into prey and helped maintain the bite.

Lavinia opened her mouth a little farther and turned her head.

"Very intimidating," Lavinia murmured to her reflection.

She smiled around the fangs before retracting them.

"Absolutely terrifying."

The smile remained as she reached for her phone on the counter. 

A few notifications waited for her, though Lavinia ignored most of them and opened the conversation she'd been checking intermittently since returning home.

Rebecca had replied.

Lavinia's smile widened.

She had sent several of the pictures they'd taken while shopping, including one Valerie had taken when Lavinia had been posing in the outfit she'd ultimately chosen. 

Rebecca's responses had started normally enough, but the more pictures Lavinia sent, the more awkwardly complimentary they had become.

Beautiful appeared several times.

So did gorgeous.

There was also one message where Rebecca had typed something, deleted it, typed again, and apparently settled for telling Lavinia that she looked "really, really pretty," followed by an embarrassed emoji.

Lavinia lightly covered her mouth.

She shouldn't tease her.

She absolutely wanted to tease her.

Lavinia typed out a response, stared at it for a moment, then erased the worst of it before sending something considerably gentler. 

Rebecca was already nervous enough whenever Lavinia messaged her. 

There was no need to completely overwhelm the poor woman before they'd even seen each other again.

She placed her phone down and ran both hands through her golden hair, fluffing it before smoothing the long strands back into place. 

The motion stirred the familiar scent of berries and pine into the room, strong enough that Lavinia's nose immediately picked it up.

It was strange how quickly she'd stopped noticing her own scent unless something disturbed her hair or clothing.

She supposed humans experienced something similar with perfume.

Except she couldn't stop wearing hers.

Lavinia turned slightly and inspected the side of her dress. 

There wasn't so much as a tear remaining from the previous night's excitement, although that wasn't particularly surprising. 

The dress had repaired itself long before she'd returned home.

The shopping clothes hadn't been nearly as fortunate.

She'd liked that shirt too.

Lavinia sighed.

At least the evening hadn't ended as disastrously as it could have.

Violetta hadn't blamed them for what happened. If anything, she'd been surprisingly approving once the full sequence of events had been explained. 

The wolves had initiated the confrontation, the vampires had attempted to calm the situation, and when a human was threatened, Lavinia had intervened rather than allowing him to be injured.

Everything afterward had been messy, but Violetta had said they'd handled themselves reasonably well considering the circumstances.

They had even managed to avoid another visit to the police station.

That alone deserved celebration.

Lavinia had started wondering if the officers there were going to reserve seats for them.

She checked the time.

The sun hadn't risen yet. It was fairly early in the morning, which left them with a little while before the familiar heaviness of approaching daylight began pulling at them.

Gwendolyn had returned too.

That had been an event.

She'd been quite unhappy after discovering exactly how much she'd missed during her absence. 

Lavinia hadn't even needed to exaggerate anything. 

Shopping, eating at a restaurant, arguing with werewolves, fighting werewolves, watching several transform, destroying an unfortunate amount of restaurant property, chasing one through the mall, stopping him after he'd killed somebody.

Gwendolyn had stared at her as if personally betrayed.

Apparently visiting her mother for one evening had caused her to miss everything interesting.

Still, Gwendolyn had been happy.

That mattered more.

From everything Lavinia had heard, her relationship with Eleanor was going extremely well.

They spoke frequently, and the initial fear and uncertainty surrounding her transformation seemed to have faded entirely.

Lavinia was glad.

What she didn't entirely understand were situations like Adelaide's.

Adelaide's relationship with her parents had already been strained before the First Divergence, so perhaps she wasn't the best example, but becoming a vampire had only widened an existing gap. 

There were other vampires dealing with similar problems too. Families that had once been close suddenly became distant because one member had changed.

Lavinia could intellectually understand why.

Emotionally, it seemed unnecessary.

A human might be afraid after seeing their daughter, sister, brother, husband, or wife become a vampire. Vampires drank blood. 

They possessed fangs and claws, moved faster than human eyes could comfortably follow, and were strong enough to kill somebody almost casually.

But possessing the ability to do something didn't mean someone would do it.

Lavinia leaned against the counter.

She didn't need to drain a human dry to feed. None of them did. 

They certainly could, and there was no point pretending otherwise, but there was an enormous difference between capability and intention.

A human could purchase a gun.

That gun could kill several people.

The mere fact that someone owned it didn't mean their family suddenly needed to assume they were waiting for an opportunity to start shooting everyone around them.

To Lavinia, the distinction was almost that simple.

Vampires weren't inherently dangerous.

Well...

Lavinia's nose wrinkled.

That wasn't entirely true.

They were inherently dangerous in the same sense that a loaded gun was dangerous. Their bodies were extremely capable of violence. 

Even an accidental movement made with too much force could hurt somebody, and feeding introduced an intimacy with human vulnerability that couldn't simply be ignored.

But dangerous wasn't the same thing as hostile.

She wouldn't suddenly eat someone she loved because she had fangs.

Adelaide wouldn't either.

Changing an entire relationship because someone had become a vampire therefore felt silly to Lavinia, especially when the person beneath all those changes remained recognizable.

Adelaide's situation was more complicated, though. Her relationship with her parents had already been poor, and becoming a vampire had simply given them another point of conflict. 

Lavinia couldn't fix years of family problems by declaring that vampirism wasn't a sufficient reason to be frightened.

Her phone chimed.

Lavinia glanced down.

Gwendolyn.

A pouting cat emoji filled the newest message, immediately followed by a photograph.

Lavinia opened it and snorted.

A human cosplayer stood in front of a convention display dressed as a vampire. 

The costume leaned aggressively into every stereotype imaginable: black cape, dramatic red lining, pale makeup, fake pointed ears, decorative fangs, and enough gothic accessories to make even Lavinia think it might have been excessive.

She tapped the heart beneath the picture.

Gwendolyn immediately began typing.

Lavinia waited.

The typing indicator disappeared.

Then reappeared.

Then disappeared again.

"What are you doing?" Lavinia whispered.

Another image arrived.

This one featured two cosplayers posing dramatically at each other's throats.

Lavinia laughed softly.

She wasn't offended.

Why would she be?

She was a person who happened to be a vampire. 

Vampires weren't omnipotent beings whose existence meant every fictional depiction of them suddenly became insulting. 

Humans had been telling stories about vampires long before the First Divergence, and if anything, Lavinia found it funny to see how people adapted those stories now that the real thing existed.

There was a quote she vaguely remembered.

Imitation was the greatest form of flattery?

Something like that.

Lavinia sent Gwendolyn a laughing emoji and placed her phone down again.

She studied herself in the mirror for another moment.

There was a distinction between vampires and humans. She couldn't deny that either.

It was instinctive.

Humans were humans.

Vampires were vampires.

Her mind categorized the difference automatically, much as she imagined humans instinctively distinguished themselves from animals, although the comparison wasn't quite right.

She didn't consider humans animals beneath vampires, and humans could communicate with vampires as equals in ways no animal could communicate with a human.

It was simply a line.

A surprisingly thin line, actually.

Humans could become Thralls.

Humans could be turned into vampires too, although the exact circumstances surrounding the First Divergence remained outside anyone's control. 

If another method ever emerged, the distinction between the two species might become thinner still.

Lavinia idly tapped one nail against the counter.

Turning someone she disliked would be awkward.

The thought made her blink.

She hadn't really considered it before.

Vampires didn't seem capable of truly hating each other. 

They could become annoyed, argue, tease, compete, and presumably disagree quite seriously, but there was something in them that resisted genuine hostility toward another vampire.

So what happened if someone she absolutely despised became one?

Lavinia grimaced.

"That sounds horrible."

She imagined being stuck for eternity with someone she had hated as a human, except now some part of her mind stubbornly refused to maintain the hatred.

Would she simply stop disliking them?

Would she remember exactly why she had hated them while emotionally finding the hatred impossible to reproduce?

That sounded worse somehow.

Lavinia shook her head.

No.

If she ever gained the ability to turn humans into vampires herself, she was establishing one rule immediately.

Only turn people she liked.

Footsteps sounded outside the bathroom.

Lavinia's pointed ear twitched.

She recognized the gait immediately.

Her lips curved upward, but before she could say anything, the door burst open.

A white-haired blur launched through it.

"Gwendolyn—"

Gwendolyn crashed into Lavinia and wrapped both arms around her slender waist, squeezing tightly enough that a human would have found the embrace profoundly uncomfortable.

"I missed you!" Gwendolyn announced brightly.

Lavinia rocked backward half a step before stabilizing them both. 

She stared down at the mass of long white hair pressed against her chest, then smiled and placed a hand atop Gwendolyn's head.

"You've been back for hours."

"I know."

"And you've already hugged me."

"I know."

"Several times."

"I know!"

Lavinia slowly stroked her hair. "Then how exactly did you have time to miss me?"

Gwendolyn lifted her head, her empty red eyes gleaming with amusement. "You went into the bathroom."

"For like, five minutes!"

"Too long."

Lavinia snorted, but Gwendolyn had already started pulling her toward the doorway. 

Lavinia caught the edge of the counter with one hand out of pure stubbornness rather than any actual need for support.

"Gwendolyn."

"Come on."

"I was doing something."

"You were staring at yourself."

"I was thinking."

"You can think outside."

Lavinia released the counter and allowed herself to be dragged into the hall. "I've given you plenty of hugs since you came back."

Gwendolyn stopped.

She turned slowly.

A mischievous smile spread across her face.

Lavinia immediately narrowed her eyes. "Don't."

"It wasn't enough."

"Gwendolyn."

Gwendolyn threw herself against her again with a bright laugh, wrapping her arms around Lavinia's shoulders this time and pressing her cheek against hers.

Lavinia sighed dramatically, although her arms came around Gwendolyn without hesitation.

"You are unbelievably clingy."

"I missed an entire werewolf fight!"

"That has nothing to do with being clingy."

"It has everything to do with it," Gwendolyn insisted. "You all went shopping, ate food, got into a fight, saw wolves transform, destroyed a restaurant, saved people, chased a werewolf through a mall, and I was gone for one night!"

"We didn't destroy the restaurant intentionally."

"That isn't the important part!"

Lavinia laughed as Gwendolyn squeezed her again.

"Besides, you got to see your mother."

Gwendolyn's indignation softened immediately. "Yeah."

"Wasn't that worth missing one ridiculous evening?"

Gwendolyn hesitated, then buried her face against Lavinia's shoulder.

"Yes," Gwendolyn admitted.

Lavinia smiled.

"Then stop complaining."

"I can be happy I saw Mom and upset I missed everything here."

"Greedy."

"Very."

Lavinia gently pinched one of Gwendolyn's pointed ears.

Gwendolyn squeaked and jerked her head away, staring at her in betrayal before reaching for Lavinia's ear in retaliation. 

Lavinia twisted away laughing, only for Gwendolyn to follow her into the hall, both of them grabbing for the other's ears while trying to protect their own.

"You started it!" Gwendolyn complained.

"I barely touched you!"

"You pinched me!"

"It was affectionate."

"Then mine will be affectionate too!"

"No, yours won't!"

Gwendolyn laughed and lunged again.

Lavinia slipped around her, golden hair whipping behind her as she moved, but deliberately kept herself slow enough that Gwendolyn could chase her. 

The two vampires disappeared farther down the hall in a tangle of black dresses, white and gold hair, laughter, and halfhearted complaints.

Whatever Lavinia had been thinking about in the mirror could wait.

She had eternity to think about herself.

Gwendolyn apparently couldn't survive five minutes without another hug.

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