It is a question that cascades into many more. Not only the ethical and philosophical aspect of making a vampire, but the personal. Would Daniel seek other companionship? Would he want it in that fashion? What, to him, would make a good vampire? And so on.

Daniel, drawing shapes along his back, into his hair. Armand has the sense of them both being charcoal sketches, shaped by each others smudged fingertips.

"As do I."

He wonders if he would kill this hypothetical, unlikely fledgling, or if he would stand frozen at the sidelines of the thing as yet another tectonic plate shifted, formed a new ocean. Or if he would decide on the latter and one day snap and do it anyway. If Daniel would mind very much.

So far off, Daniel says. Armand thinks he is quite good at seeing to that distance, even if his past feels like smudged charcoal.

"I thought I knew you well," he says, as he thinks these things. "I thought I'd seen the depths of you before that moment. I suppose I had. But it's different. It's like a last flood of information before you become a black box. It's like I had you inside of me before I fed you yourself. And I did it very slowly."