That night, Mayerling wakes, and much is strange. The city celebrates Riteior's departure. Others argue and concern themselves with a half-Pthumerian's offer. Portals open overhead, unusual scents and sounds washing over him. That is all as it has been. Even the portals from home, seeing as there has been monsters. Those active during the day, he must leave to others. At night?

Mayerling prepares to meet Sharon or any others who might face them. Instead he finds a nearly forgotten smell wafting down the street. He rushes out of his coffin to the nearest mirror, gets ready at full vampire speed, rushes down to the kitchen to— to, well, he doesn't have anything more than dried blood pellets to offer, but he makes three pretty place settings around the table and rushes around the house tidying anything and everything he can touch because—

"Hello, Johan, dear?" A sweet, silky voice so smooth most humans would melt and offer their necks calls from the door.

He swallows, soothes his nerves, and answers the door, his hand still shaking slightly. It reveals, as every sense told him, his mother and next to her his father. They are vampires, as tall and pale as him. Their clothes are finer and newer. Everything about them has the optimism of people whose civilization hasn't fallen. Mayerling's heart heals and breaks again upon seeing them. He reaches for their hands.

They pull him into a large hug that's tight, even for him.

"Now, introduce us to everyone," his father says. "Your wife, the rest of your household. What friends you have in this quaint town."

Mayerling blinks.

"We can smell her on you," his father says. "Though she seems to be out. Perhaps we could start with your dhampir… companion then?"

He's speechless in a way he hasn't been in thousands of years. No many how many people he introduces them to. For the next couple days, everywhere he goes… he has his parents and introductions to make.

When the deer disappears and with it all sense of landmarks and direction in the dark of night, Mayerling worries not. He too is a creature of the night. His cloak spreads around him into the shape of wings, and he springs upward through the trees into the open sky. The moon can lead him open.

That's when the Fire Nation monsters attack. He knew they were close, but his silence through the air is not enough. Multiple flying horned birds fly at him, eager for his blood. Mayerling slices through one. Its two halves fall apart as they go down, dripping blood onto the treetops. Those that remain care not. They attack with great fervor. With moderate reluctance, Mayerling extends his control over one of them and commands it to attack the others. He works in concert, slashing and piercing (his own hands turned to great claws of metal), until the rest are gone.

However, he's on the forest floor by then, constantly pressed down and down away from the free path home. His boot crushes something he recognizes not only as a bone but a pair—tibia and fibula. Mayerling looks down at the bones around him until he sees the deer skull with an arrow piercing it. Violent death of a sacred animal. He crouches with it pressed against his forehead and stays there, in search of its spirit.

The reasons be what they may, Mayerling wants to be where the people are. He wants to be part of the community and to get to know people. He doesn't partake in the food or drink because he's a vampire. There's no point. Spring may have come, but he remembers winter's hardships and leaves food and drink for those who need it. Yet he longs to be part of the crowd, to be someone you sit with, even if you don't talk with him.

He sits next to the campfires, his heart soaring each time someone sits. Yet he doesn't want to overwhelm them or to push too hard. After a little while, he merely asks, "What do you feel about all this?