"--got out of the trade in, uh, 1963," Vlad said. He was perched on a wicker sofa repainting his nails while Hawk sprawled sort of precariously across a bench swing, his feet up in front of the wood stove that was glowing against one wall. The remains of takeout dinner littered the top of a glass table between them, while Hawk continued to pick through a to-go box with chopsticks. "Spent the next few decades on Earth...got picked up by the cops in Washington DC for living in the airport...and got deported back to Aetheri in 1989. Over a hundred years I was away. I'll never forget the day I got back, either," Vlad added.

The memory was smudgy; Vlad stood looking at a slight figure whose red robes had darkened with rain, in a chair with its edges glowing.

"It was the same day that Cynn Numair was coronated. Cynn Rhys had just been murdered the day before. It was raining, and Numair was in a wheelchair. I'd been away so long, I didn't understand a word he was saying."

"But how'd you live so long on Earth without anyone noticin' you're, y'know," Hawk paused.

"Not human?"

"Yeah." Janis, who had been staring out the patio window with her tail switching back and forth, now came over and jumped up onto the bench behind Hawk's head.

"That part was easy," Vlad answered, as Janis stuck her face over Hawk's shoulder, trying to get a whiff of his food. He raised the crook of his wing to block her. "People on Earth aren't usually looking for signs that you're not human. And spirits like me look pretty close, anyway."

He flashed Hawk a smile, displaying his long canines. His eyes were a pale blue, the pupils now contracted into thin slits.

"Besides the teeth and the eyes and the greyish skin, and the, uh, greater diversity in genital configuration--" here Hawk made a questioning noise that Vlad ignored, "--most humans don't have much reason to look too close. I spent my time on Earth with kids that did a lot of drugs," he added, "or else in gay bars. Most just thought I was some foreign transvestite, and that was that."