The flight from Shreveport, Louisiana to Fairbanks, Alaska was a long one, and so the departure time had been scheduled as close to sunset as possible. The need to get to the airport so early meant that Thalia had to skip breakfast in order to make it on time. This made her three times as irritable as she was normally. Worse yet, it didn't help her complexion much. Her usual pallor was replaced by a wanness that could put her in the running for a Casper lookalike contest if ever there was one.

"Fucking Alaska of all places. I know there are worse things than being stuck on a plane with only a human for company for who knows how long, but it gets even better. At the end of the flight I'll be in the fourth circle of hell, also known as ALASKA. Fucking wonderful." Thalia lamented for a minute, but sharply pulled herself out of the moment. "No. Whatever is coming is exactly what I deserve. It is part of my punishment." Her face settled into calm and acceptance as she walked up to the tarmac. She handed off her suitcase to the Anubis Air attendant and climbed the staircase onto the plane. Looking around the plane she began to wonder exactly how good of a friend this person was to Eric. The Learjet 25 she was standing in was just big enough for four people with the way it was arranged, so it was obvious that this flight had been chartered just for her and Burnham. She looked around quizzically for a moment until she was interrupted by the Anubis flight attendant.

"Welcome aboard, Ms. Magnus. Please feel free to have a seat." The girl bowed deeply. She wondered for a moment why the vampire wouldn't sit and relax, but then realized that the vampire was probably trying to figure out how she was going to sleep. She smiled at Thalia and continued, "There are two Sekhmet Boxes behind that secured wall. The instructions for setting the door's passcode is here in this information packet we have prepared for you."

Sekhmet Boxes were Anubis Air's latest gimmick, but it was a gimmick catching on quickly. They were essentially coffins especially suited for less secure surroundings. Made of a combination of tungsten carbide and titanium, they were nearly impossible to breech by brute force, and they were equipped with three levels of biometric locks and a hydraulic lid lift that the occupant could control at the touch of a button. Stealing the glorified coffin would be no small feat either; the dense tungsten made sure of that. In fact, moving them usually required a lot of men at minimum, or more ideally, a forklift. Any vamp that could afford the $300,500 price tag had one on order. The box was named after the Egyptian warrior goddess who was believed to be a blood drinker before the Great Revelation came about. Now that humans had been clued in, everyone called her out for what she was: a vampire. The ads displayed the tag line prominently: "Sleep like a diety. Sleep in a Sekhmet Box."

Now that Thalia understood where and what her sleeping arrangements were, she felt comfortable enough to take a seat. There was a plush eggshell colored leather reclining chair suited for a single inhabitant to her left, and a matching sofa across from it that could seat two. She chose the sofa and sat down.

The attendant continued on. "The flight length is approximately 18 hours and 25 minutes, primarily because this is a small aircraft but a very long distance to cover. It requires us to make four refueling stops. We apologize for the extra inconvenience, but these are the natural limitations to small craft charter flight. We will depart as soon as your companion arrives."

Thalia bristled a little until she understood that the flight attendant was referring to Burnham as a travel companion and not as her lover. Speak of the devil, Burnham began to ascend the stairs to the aircraft at that very moment. He nodded at Thalia and took a seat across from her on the reclining chair.

The attendant reentered the cabin and gave her last speech, letting them know where the refreshments were located and when meals for Burnham would be served. "Mister Robert Burnham, welcome aboard. Ms. Magnus, you may be pleased to hear that in this compartment here there is a full compliment of both TrueBlood as well as a complimentary bottle of Royalty Blended at your disposal. The compartment is temperature controlled to exactly 85° Fahrenheit, so there is no need to preheat before drinking. Enjoy your flight."

The flight attendant took off behind some compartment door and the jets of the plane fired up. Thalia began to wonder what Burnham would try to start a conversation. "I am perfectly fine discussing nothing, but I'm sure the human will want to talk. But whatever might I have in common with such a young creature? Ugh, they're all worthless."

Burnham actually took the first step, surprising Thalia in the process. "Thalia Magnus? That's an interesting last name. I expected something Greek rather than Latin."

"I'm mildly impressed you would know the difference. It's a long tale. Where exactly did Eric scare you up from, anyway?"

"I was a post-doctoral fellow at Tulane when I responded to an ad for a personal assistant that was posted on a bulletin board on campus. Post-doc is a modern term for "indentured servitude" really, and I needed to make extra money. Especially considering my field was Classics. No guarantee of steady income just because you know a lot about the archaic."

Thalia decided to look past his humanity for a moment to size him up. Burnham was an average sized guy, around 5'10" in height, with a defined but not pronounced musculature. His ear-length sepia tone hair was well groomed, but just long enough that he developed a habit of repeatedly tucking the hair on his left side behind his ear. He was more casually dressed today than he was the last time she saw him at Fangtasia. This day he wore a pair of dark denim jeans with a simple golden toned polo shirt. Thalia couldn't help but note that the jeans fit him especiallywell.

Burnham decided that he wouldn't ever get anywhere if he didn't press a little, so he asked again, "Apparently we have quite a bit of time on our hands. So I would be up for hearing a 'long tale' as you say, if you're willing to tell."

Now that they were in the air, Thalia was comfortable enough to retrieve her standard O-negative TrueBlood from the modified wine cooler at the front end of the room. She wasn't going to give in easy since she hadn't yet exhausted the first topic.

"Classics, you say? Are you fluent in what they consider Ancient Greek?"

"I can manage a decent conversation in it. I didn't learn it in college, however. I picked up several variants of both Greek and Latin when I was 12 or so. At this point my biggest issue is that I sometimes get vocabulary confused from all the different languages I have learned... so no guarantees I won't mix some Modern Greek in by mistake."

This intrigued Thalia. "Well then. Let's test the boy," she thought. She raised her TrueBlood and drank deeply from it. She looked directly at him, and with the tinny taste of the synthetic blood in her mouth she was tempted to glamour him just so she could get a decent meal on this trip. Not wanting to land herself on Eric's bad side was the only thing that stopped her. Human or not, he was relatively easy on the eyes and Thalia always appreciated beauty. She looked directly at him and said, "Ei d' a'ge-nun."

Burnham wasn't a particularly proud guy, but he wasn't too keen on following orders from people who weren't paying him, either. He did get that she was testing his knowledge of her primary language though, and if he was going to get her to talk to him at all during this trip, he would have to be more flexible about taking orders. With that he got up, walked across the aisle and came to a stop standing just to her left. What he did next actually surprised Thalia. He leaned down and spoke seductively into her ear, "Es'tô."

Vampire or not, Thalia had been living a life of solitude lately, and she hadn't been this close to a man in quite a while. She preferred to drink from women to avoid exciting her libido. It was part of her self-imposed penance. The funny thing about it is that Burnham wasn't intending to be alluring; he tended to be more interested in books than people and that resulted in a touch of social ineptitude. He was prone to invading people's personal space, and in most cases it put people on-edge. In this case, Thalia thought it to be daring and it was quite the turn-on. It helped that he didn't butcher the pronunciation, and his inflection was perfect. Besides, what she said was, "Come to me- now." He responded by following her directions to the letter, then responded with, "So be it." She couldn't fault him for that.

Burnham wasn't perceptive enough to catch on to Thalia's flash of interest; he was too busy concentrating hard on figuring out his next move. He sat on the sofa beside her. Continuing in Ancient Greek he asked, "So, ThaliaMagnus, what other languages do you speak?"

Until now he hadn't been close enough for her to smell him. The scent of his blood combined with the fact that she hadn't fed upon waking- not good. Combine that with the fact that she had only consumed synthetic blood so far that night, and it was definitely not good. She gracefully slid a few inches further from him and answered, "Latin and Greek from my childhood. Then I lived through the Ottomans, so I picked up Turkish, and Arabic; some Farsi. I spent quite a bit of time in China. Some very interesting time in China. So Mandarin and quite a few dialects there. Later I ran across some Georgians and learned some Kartuli Ena and Russian. And of course, there's English." Now that she had been speaking in Greek her voice picked up the hint of an accent.

"This is exciting! Will you speak to me in Kartuli Ena? I've had no exposure to it. It would be fascinating to hear."

Thalia was confused. "Ti?" (Why?) "You will not understand me. How will this be enjoyable for you?"

"Ti mên?" (Why not?) "Well, if you start with describing things in the room I will be able to figure out the translation for some words. I may be able to pick up quite a bit, in fact, if you're willing to try it."

For the next couple hours Thalia talked to him in Georgian about as many mundane things as possible hoping that he might get a stray word or two if she pointed at things while she said the words. After describing the cabin she moved on to a contrived, one-sided conversation about the weather, and from there she spoke a bit about the country itself. She didn't see what good it was doing, until she moved on to describing herself.

Still speaking in Georgian, she said, "I am Thalia. I am wearing a sky blue pencil skirt and a blue and white, silk wrap-around tunic. I have very dark brown curly hair; almost black. I have gray eyes. And I am short; 1.6 meters tall. People underestimate me often because I am small-"

Burnham interrupted her there. "You neglected to say beautiful. Oh, and I imagine it would be a very, very big mistake to underestimate you."

Thalia had been around a long time, and it took a lot to surprise her. This was more than enough to do the trick. He spoke in English, but it was obvious that in the amount of time she had spoken, he managed to comprehend an extraordinary amount of the relatively obscure language. She spoke with incredulity. "Pos?" (How?)

"Oh." Burnham had just now realized that he had given himself away. He wasn't entirely uncomfortable over it, but it wasn't something he shared often. "It's just something I've always been able to do. I absorb information like a sponge, and I have a photographic memory. Combined, I can learn just about anything in a very short period of time, comparatively. It's not something I used to hide... but during my undergraduate studies at Carnegie Mellon some of my professors found out and suddenly everyone was planning my future for me according to their needs. I left when I got the position at Tulane and as soon as I stepped off the plane in New Orleans I decided to keep my ability as low-key as possible. Normally I carry a notepad with me wherever I go. I appear to take notes incessantly. That way, people are prone to believe I remember things well because I write them all down. Usually I'm actually just doodling. So anyway, if you spoke in Georgian for a few more hours I would probably be able to have a reasonable conversation with you. Now that I've heard it spoken, give me a month and a textbook of the language, and you won't be able to distinguish me from a native... colloquialisms aside, of course."

It wasn't often that you could catch any vamp with jaw hanging open, but this was a rather extraordinary circumstance. Besides, this was one of her weaknesses. Smart men were an aphrodisiac to her. Part of her disdain for humanity was due to the fact that she had met dogs with more intelligence than she'd seen from the average human. Those dogs weren't shifters, either. She was part of the subset of vampires that had a difficult time relating to humanity. The presently living usually knew nothing of any of the times she had lived in or the cultures she had adapted to. They rarely had an interest in learning about them, either. The exception to that rule were the academics that sought out and hounded older vampires for any information they could mine. They came crawling out of the woodwork after the Great Revelation, but now they'd all but given up since they found that 99% of the vamps born before the 18th century were extremely secretive. They didn't survive this long by revealing their stories haphazardly. In any case, from Thalia's point of view, the living were most often consumed in their now. Understandable, since the time they had was short, but completely uninteresting to her. Burnham, on the other hand, had just become interesting. Very interesting, indeed.

Thalia finally found the presence of mind to gather her expression again and spoke, "Well. This trip might turn out to be worthwhile just yet."

Burnham grinned. "Glad to have been of service."

They continued on through two layovers and an hour of turbulence developing an easy rapport between them. Thalia seemed to slump a bit, and with the more pronounced fatigue Burnham finally started to realize that she wasn't looking quite as healthy as she seemed to be two nights prior. With genuine concern he spoke, "Is something wrong?"

"The sun comes due. Within 30 minutes. I need to retire soon. If it is my coloring that worries you, it is just a side effect of not having had real blood today. I will survive."

"I see. So the official word about vamps being able to survive on synthetic is false then."

Thalia gave a faint nod. "It is technically possible, but not at all desirable."

"I remember being told that there is a bottle of Royalty Blended on board. Is that not the real thing?"

"Mostly it is. However, I have to keep in mind what my state will be when I wake from my slumber. It will be far more useful when I rise than it would be for me now. Now, I can manage. When I wake I may not be quite so controlled."

Burnham looked at her, curious. They had moved around the cabin a bit since the last refueling, and now he was sitting in the reclining chair. He normally thought far faster than others, and he possessed the astounding ability to truly process multiple thoughts at once. He normally did a good job at slowing things down when he was around others because people reacted badly. Some time ago he was made aware that when he got lost in processing thought his face fell into a vacant stare that made others think he was mentally retarded. Now, however, there was no way he could slow his thoughts down, and in fact, they just kept coming faster. "I wonder what those fangbangers get out of the experience. Does it feel good? What will I do if she's more thirsty than I bargained for? 25 minutes until dawn and counting. It would give me an excuse to be close to her. She wouldn't deny me, would she? I need to make a decision... before I panic for no reason. Like, NOW."

With that he stood, then walked to the sofa and sat beside her. He shifted and laid himself down across her lap, turning his head towards the other side of the cabin so his cheek was flush against her leg and his neck fully exposed to her mouth. Thalia just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Will you... drink from me?"

"Ti?" (Why?)

He smiled. "Ti mên?" (Why not?)

Thalia was surprised at the offer, and though her age granted her the ability to refrain, she wasn't going to pass up a warm body- especially an attractive one splayed across her nearly bare legs. Furthermore, the submissive nature of the act was unusual; unexpected. This lit a bit of a fire inside of her.

"Tau'ta dê, es'tô. Kha'ris soi." (Yes... so be it. Thank you.)

She wanted to drink, but she didn't want to scare him off either. That could ruin what could be a very beneficial relationship over the course of the trip. Having two large fangs thrust into your neck was in no way a pleasant experience unless the donor was aroused first. Otherwise they need to be glamoured afterwards, but she decided the latter was a bad idea. She was sure Eric would object to finding that Burnham had been glamoured because he would suspect she was trying to hide something from him. He did not feed from Burnham though, so he shouldn't mind her feeding from him. This, then, left option one.

Burnham wasn't privy to her thoughts, so he continued to lie still across her, his eyes clenched shut in apprehension. He was expecting pain, so he was caught completely off guard by what came next. Thalia leaned over him and kissed his neck. She started with small, short pecks down the side of his neck and then gently stretched the collar of his shirt outwards to give her access to his shoulder. She slid her hand back up to his chin and turned his head so that his eyes met hers. Burnham had stiffened, but she continued. She motioned for him to sit up, and he sat, his back against the smooth leather sofa, though now it didn't seem to be quite as comfortable since now he was starting to sweat. Before he could blink she hiked her skirt up just enough to be able to straddle him. She now sat on top of him, around him, and with her face toward his, she pressed herself up against him until she knew he could feel the full swell of her breasts. He looked petrified, but his arousal was quickly starting to take over like a muscle relaxant. She pressed her forearms against him and shifted her hands to frame his face. She stretched upwards and gently nipped on his bottom lip with her teeth. Then she pressed her lips down on his with force until he relented. He was now kissing her back with vigor. She murmured into his mouth, "Good. Now you are ready for me."

With lightning speed she pulled his head aside and plunged her fangs into his neck. As she drew his blood into her mouth, she felt all the remaining tension in his body release, and it fell to her to hold him in position while she drank. She inhaled deeply one last time since she was nearing her fill, and sank a little deeper for her last taste. In that moment the tension in his body returned and his arms circled around her in a vice grip. The rough texture of his jeans scratched against her violently as his entire body shuddered beneath her in release as she pulled out of him. Immediately she began to heal his wounds by licking his neck. She smiled and kissed him quickly, one last time before she looked up. It was almost as if she were sniffing the air. She whispered, "I must go," and kissed him just below the ear, one final time.

Bobby Burnham only managed a nod before she was up and securely locked into the rear cabin where her Sekhmet Box was housed. The door was closed and the sun was rising. All he could do was slump across the sofa, a million thoughts screaming through his brain until all at once, they stopped cold, and he fell asleep.