A Matter Of Diet
Evangeline always tried to follow the rules of vampiring (Vampirism? Vampiricism? Orthodox Vampiritholicism?) as well as she could, as well as any ten-year-old could stay true to an almighty gaggle of rules, recommendations, guidelines and dramatic 'explanations' such as could be culled from folklore.
After a few decades, however, she'd simply picked out the characteristics she would stick with. For one thing, garlic was definitely off the platter — how normal humans could even eat the stuff was beyond her. Sunlight? No problem, seeing as the most exciting and dramatic fights usually happened at sundown. Crosses? Frankly, unless the original vampire had had some crippling and awfully specific form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, she could not for the death of her figure out how they were supposed to endanger her (though she still hissed a little bit louder whenever anyone threw one at her, just for tradition's sake).
Evangeline was a very strong believer in the magic of stories.
Nevertheless, one thing the various tales all agreed on: the consumption and sucking of blood. Human blood, to be precise, though she assumed that the blood of any sufficiently humanoid sentient race was somewhere in the fine print. It was the be-all and end-all of vampiri-somethingsomething, the defining trait that gave it all away. It was practically the entire schtick of the vampire 'race', for goodness' sake.
So it always amazed Evangeline how she had been able to shake off that bit of folklore.
It had all started after the boya left for Mundus Magicus, when she had taken to reading books out of sheer boredom. The first few tales regarding vampires that she had read had been a mixture of tacky horror stories about old men with tooth extensions and a morass of lurid kink fodder about bisexual vampire ladies seducing the wives of the almighty and pure (and Christian) hero. Evangeline would be the first to admit that gender was secondary for her to attractiveness, but even she wasn't as oversexed as some of the stories made 'ye of the sucky folk' out to be. Perhaps it came with the territory of having the body of a preteen.
Then, however, she'd happened upon the stories of one Sir Pratchett...
Evangeline's first resort of not-blood had been fighting.
Roughly three days later, the fact that everyone worth fighting had in fact done a runner to the Magical World had clicked.
Evangeline's second resort had been philosophical argumentation.
After reducing the headmaster's arguments to a crippled wreck of half-truths and conjecture for the fifth time in a row, it dawned on her that for this sort of thing to stick, one needed an intellectual almost-equal to be properly satisfied.
Evangeline's third resort had been sports.
After being laughed off the court after trying to apply for the soccer team, she'd indiscriminately sworn revenge on the team members and struck sports off her list, forever.
And so she had slunk back in the afternoon's light, wondering what she was going to do for entertainment now, her footstep taking her past Chao Bao Zi.
"Would you like a steamed bun?"
Evangeline blinked. Satsuki. The one person in the entire class of 3-A who had any idea of what they were doing and how they were going to do it. She shrugged and replied offhandedly to the positive, mind still searching for alternatives to blood.
To make a long story short, she found it.
And from now on, every day she eats lunch at Chao Bao Zi. She still wonders if she's going to feel the need to suck the boya dry to break the barrier curse when he comes back. After all, leaving would mean giving up on her daily lunches with Satsuki.
And then what would she do for sane company?
A/N: So someone asked for Evangeline/Satsuki friendship fic a while back on the All Purpose Negima Fanfiction Thread, and I rediscovered this bit I wrote for that request while on an Archive Binge. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.