Lili and Roy returned from a local bar, the former plastered as usual. Ludwig hadn't wanted to go, so he stayed in the lodge. 

Roy let her stumble into her room. "You're on drunkard watch." 

"What? Why do I have to do it?" Ludwig protested. 

"Because I had to do it the last time this happened." 

"Then here's an idea: Don't let Lili get drunk and no one will have to watch her!" Ludwig exclaimed.

"It's not my place to tell her what to do; she's a grown-ass woman." Roy replied.

"Well she doesn't act like one." Ludwig mumbled. 

Roy scoffed. "Heh, you're one to talk." 

"Hey!--"

"I'm not going to argue with you, Ludwig. We all have to make sacrifices around here. That's just part of being in a relationship."

"Anyways, I've gotta go. Some of my buddies are going to have a jam session and I'm on guitar."

Ludwig groaned dramatically, collapsing on the guest bed. 

"Gee, thanks for helping a brother out." Roy said sarcastically before vanishing into thin air.

Beethoven leaped onto the bed. "It can't possibly be that bad, Luddi. She'll probably just sleep the whole time anyway." 

Ludwig sighed heavily. "I guess you're right." 

He grabbed his phone off of the comforter. He clicked on the YouTube app, scrolling until he came upon an ASMR video, a roleplay of getting ready for a ball in 1812. He needed some relaxation time, so he decided to watch it. The woman in the video had been busy putting rouge on his cheeks when he heard Lili calling for him from the other room. 

He continued to watch the video. It was probably nothing. If he went in there to see what she wanted, she would probably just say "Hi" or some other stupid shit like that. She called for him a few more times.

"Is there a murderer in there…or can I keep watching this video?" He shouted lazily. 

She called for him again, so he groaned and stomped into her room. 

"What do you want?! It better be important, I was getting my makeup done!" He shouted.

In Lili's drunken state, this made perfect sense. "By who?" She asked. 

Ludwig sighed. "It was just an ASMR video."

Lili rolled over and looked up at him, her cheek smooshed against the bed. "I didn't know you were into that. You could've asked me for some recommendations." 

"Why were you calling me?" He asked, getting straight to the point. 

"Because I thought you left." 

"Left? Where would I even go?" 

"To the forest, maybe. To be with the other wolves." 

A chorus of howls erupted in the distance. Ludwig couldn't remember the last time he'd heard wolves howl in real life. There was one howl, a deep one, seemingly full of sorrow and longing.

"It's a Bruce Almighty Moon tonight." She commented. 

"A Bruce Almighty Moon?" He repeated, confused. 

"Yeah, look at how huge the moon is."

As they stared at it through the window, Ludwig did notice the moon looked a little closer than normal. Before their eyes, the moon seemed to become a bright vermillion. All Ludwig could think of was "the blood moon rises once again…" 

"You're…probably just imagining things." He told Lili.

She didn't say anything as she kept her brown eyes glued to the moon, its rouge glow illuminating her face. 

The sound of a vibration startled Ludwig, until he realized it was only Lili's smartphone. It vibrated once more, so he decided to take a look. 

"Don't look at it!" Lili warned him lethargically, but he ignored her. 

There were messages from Matthias. Ludwig wondered what business he had texting her all times of night--it was almost 2 am for crying out loud! He glanced at them. He feigned a gag and blew raspberries. "Well that escalated quickly…"

"What? What is it?" Lili chuckled. 

"The first message says 'Hey what's up' and the next one says 'I miss you' with a red heart emoji." 

"Oh." She replied as she waved her hand dismissively. They were only innocent messages, nothing to worry about.

"Don't be jelly." She said from under the covers.

"I'm not jealous." 

"Mmmmmhmmmmm." She hummed smugly.

Roy had said the same thing when Ludwig had expressed the same concern before. He'd seen how Matthias texted her all the time, bombarding her with attention and affection. He'd stated that nothing good could come of this. And Roy had laughed at him, and asked him what the heck he was talking about. Lili had said that those things were all normal in relationships, but she doubted he would know anything about that. 

And she was right, he didn't know anything about that, but he still felt as if things were moving a little fast. They had only started dating in what? March? Roy had said that 7 months wasn't a very short time to be dating at all, especially for them. Ludwig had asked him what he meant, and Roy said that Lili and Matthias were already in their thirties. If they wanted to settle and raise a family together, it was probably better to start earlier rather than later if they didn't want to be raising kids in their fifties. They didn't have a lot of time to just play around and waste time. Ludwig didn't want to think about Lili getting old and gray and dying, so he dropped the subject. 

Ludwig set the phone down on Lili's bedside table. He sat in a chair in another quadrant of the room, facing away from Lili. 

"The moon is so red…." Lili commented again, as if he'd already forgotten. 

"Which reminds me: can you smell when I'm on my period?" 

"Um…what?" 

"You heard me." 

"Uh…I…I guess so…" 

"Is it a bad smell or a good smell?" She asked anxiously, "'Cause if it smells fishy, don't tell me, 'cause that would hurt my feelings." 

Ludwig turned to look at her, a smirk on his face. "So…what do you want me to say instead?" 

She threw her pillow at him, though she couldn't put much force behind it due to her intoxicated state. "Stop playing and tell me the truth! Is it a bad smell?" 

"Lili, we've been over this multiple times: your definition of a bad smell and my definition of a bad smell is vastly different. It's practically the opposite." He reminded her. 

"Oh yeah…" She drawled with recollection. He was always telling her how her perfumes, air fresheners, flowery soaps and shampoos smelled "like a foul poison that makes him want to vomit". He claimed it was multiplied when she invited her friends over, every hair flip bringing a constant barrage of stink. She would always say he was exaggerating; since when did he hate the smell of flowers? Then he'd say that those things weren't flower's, they were artificial fragrances amplified to the tenth degree so that the dulled senses of humans could catch the slightest whiff of it. There was a difference. 

She'd tried to compromise by using less air fresheners, but she never stopped with the pungent smells entirely. She liked them and Matthias liked them, so he never believed she really would. 

"So…you're that it isn't a bad smell? Are you saying….it's a good smell? Not gonna lie, that's kinda kinky." She laughed. 

Oh, so that's what this was about. She was trying to trap him into giving a socially unacceptable answer, so she could tell her friends about it later and have a laugh.

"I don't know, I've never really thought about it." He lied. 

"Oh." Lili said. "Or...are you just saying that because you think I'm trying to trap you into giving a socially unacceptable answer, so I can tell my friends about it later and have a laugh?" 

"Um, what? No." He replied, suddenly concerned that the blood moon had turned Lili into a psychic. Or maybe she'd been a psychic all along?! 

"Oh, okay." She said, seemingly satisfied. 

They sat in silence for a while. Lilium's phone buzzed a few more times, but Ludwig wasn't very interested in looking at it this time. He was more interested in how empty his stomach was. His blood rations had run out since he dropped out of The School. He'd sucked the blood of the rainbow trout the day before, but that had only been about 10 mL, a miniscule snack compared to the 750 mL he should've been consuming daily. It had been easier to forget he was craving blood when there wasn't any around. So he decided to stop thinking about that, and think about The School. The School...his head hurt just thinking about what to do next, so he would not think about that anymore either. Not now. 

Lili's phone buzzed again. 

"What do I smell like?" She asked.

"What?" 

"Everyone has their own 'signature scent', right? I want to know what mine is." 

Her phone buzzed again. He turned in its direction, but he didn't pick it up. 

He wrung his hands. "I would have to sniff you in order to determine that." 

"Why don't you just know my smell off the top of your head? We're literally around each other, like, all the time." 

"I do, that's precisely the problem. I don't suspect you want me to give you an answer like 'You smell like you?', do you?"

Her phone buzzed again. 

"No, I guess not," She admitted, "But don't make it weird." 

The whole idea of sniffing someone was weird in and of itself. For a human like her, at least. He'd never seen Matthias take a whiff of her, or vice versa. Even if he had, the gesture would be seen as creepy and perverted rather than as an act of friendly greeting, like it was when Ludwig and Beethoven did it. 

He slowly slid off the bed and tentatively climbed into hers, trying not to make it weird. He began at the neck. It was his go-to because there were plenty of nerves there. He took a sniff, but grimaced and looked away. 

"What?" 

"You still smell of booze." Ludwig informed her. 

"What? But I showered and brushed my teeth!"

"Yeah, and now the odor is an amalgamation of alcohol, fruity mouthwash and minty toothpaste." 

He then went for the armpit. He figured that she would be very sweaty there, but her natural smell was overpowered by whatever deodorant she'd used. 

He found a spot on her arm that he didn't mind. He sniffed at it and Lili giggled. "What are you picking up?" 

Lili's phone buzzed three times in rapid succession.

"L-lavender body wash mostly...I-it's kind of hard to explain." He replied. 

A lot of what he smelled was blood. Supple, delicate blood. Hers smelled quite fruity, perhaps from the artificial flavoring of wine coolers. Cherries, plums, and oranges filled his nose, mixing with the comforting iron aroma of her hemoglobin. 

Her phone buzzed again. He wished she'd just silence that stupid thing. They were having a moment! 

Against his better judgment, without thinking, he ran his tongue against the warm skin of her arm. 

Lili recoiled. "What the hell--" 

Before he could even stop himself, he sunk his fangs into the warm flesh. She screamed in agony and forced him away. 

Beethoven bolted in. "What the hell are you doing?" He winced and his ears flattened when he saw the blood dripping from Lili's arm and Ludwig's mouth. 

She ran past Beethoven and into the bathroom to deal with the wound. 

"What the heck happened here, Ludwig!?" Beethoven pushed. Ludwig was still in a stunned daze, his dark eyes glossed over.

"I-I don't know….everything just happened…" He managed to stammer. 

"You guys! I'm back! You guys should've been there, the guys are really--" He paused as he noticed the blood dripping from Ludwig's mouth. 

"Whoa! What happened to you?" He shouted.

"You should be asking what happened to me!" Lili shouted from the bathroom. Roy poked his head in, his eyes falling to the blood-soaked paper towel pressed on her wound. 

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!" 

"I was trying to find out the very same thing!" Beethoven hissed. 

"Ludwig bit me!" Lili shouted. 

"Why did you do that?" Roy shouted breathlessly. 

Ludwig's mouth struggled to form a coherent answer. "I-I was just so hungry…and the phone wouldn't shut up…" 

"Okay, I don't know what you're talking about but everyone needs to calm down so we can decide what to do next!" Roy said. 

"Well we better decide what to do sooner rather than later, 'cause Lili's wound might not stop bleeding…they never usually do…when this happens." Ludwig said slowly. His eyes remained glued to the floor, as if he still wasn't truly in his right mind. 

"Then we gotta go to the ER right away!" Roy exclaimed. 

"Wait!" Lili paused, "The people in the ER will probably ask what I've been bitten by." 

"And?" Roy retorted, "Just say you got bit by a person." 

"But I didn't, I got bit by a vampire. I can't just waltz up in there and tell them that. They probably wouldn't even believe me." 

"Okay, then we just need to see somebody who specializes in bites from supernatural creatures!" 

"Like…a witch doctor?" Ludwig guessed. 

"I don't know…." Roy trailed off thoughtfully, "Oh! Ludwig probably knows some healing spells he could cast!" 

Lili flinched. "I'm fine. Ludwig has done more than enough already. Even if we managed to find out if such a specialist exists, we'd then have to find one. We'll just say it was a dog or something!" 

"Okay, sure." Roy nodded. 

"Great! Can we go now? I'm not really feeling so hot." 

"Are you going into shock?!" Roy gasped.

"I don't know, okay!?" 

Ludwig and Roy could tell Lili was trying to be strong, but they heard the tightness of her throat and the quiver and of lip. 

***

When the group arrived at the ER, Lilium was seen immediately. They decided Ludwig would come into the room as well to answer any questions the doctor might have about the "dog". He would also be there to translate, just in case the doctor didn't speak perfect Fruitish. Thank God he did. 

"So….you said a dog bit you?" The doctor recalled. 

"Yes." Lili replied, scratching at the clean dressing on her arm. 

"Was it your dog or a dog you happened to encounter?" 

"It was mine." 

"Did you just recently adopt the dog?" 

"I adopted him about a year ago…I can't believe it's already been that long. He was injured, and I doubted anyone else would take him in. Sure, he was practically forced on me, but I did allow him to stay even after he got better, so I hope he's grateful for that!" She explained as she stared daggers at Ludwig. 

The doctor stared wide-eyed at the both of them before continuing. "Has there been any recent changes to the environment that might change the way your dog is behaving?" 

"He has been acting really weird ever since we came to Germany. I guess he might be overwhelmed by all his new surroundings." 

The doctor nodded. "Ja, that could do it--" 

"But it might also be that he's in dire need of obedience lessons so he can function like a normal member of society!" 

Ludwig scoffed while the doctor's eyes darted between the two of them. He sighed, too tired to dive deeper and get involved.

"Anyway, your blood work and X Ray looks good, so I'm going to let you go, but be sure to follow up with your normal healthcare provider when you return to the Fruit Kingdom. Be sure to change your bandages multiple times a day as well, but you say you're a nurse, so I doubt you'll have any problems with that." He concluded. 

Lili stood and gathered her things. "Dankeschön and Auf Wiedersehen!" She said as they walked out the door, somehow managing to butcher the pronunciation of both words. 

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Roy said optimistically after they finally returned to the lodge. 

Lili collapsed onto the couch, taking care not to land on her injury. "Yeah, thankfully somebody didn't cause any permanent damage. Gosh, some people really need to learn how to control their impulses." 

"I know," Ludwig piped up, "Alcoholics can be so annoying, amirite?" 

Lili sat up. "That's a bit of an exaggeration, wouldn't you say, Roy?" At least my 'alcoholism' isn't hurting anyone." 

"Are you sure about that?" Ludwig retorted smugly. "Because getting so drunk that your friends have to be burdened with taking care of you because you don't know how to drink responsibly sounds like it hurts someone. If not Roy or I, it hurts your sons, who you just dump on everyone else so you can go party!" 

Lili gasped indignantly but Ludwig continued. "And have you already forgotten that my father was an abusive alcoholic? How do you think being around alcohol affects me, hm?"

"Don't try to pull the trauma card on me! That is no excuse for biting people! Being hungry isn't an excuse either! I get hungry too sometimes, and I don't go around trying to bite my friends! I FIX MYSELF SOMETHING TO EAT IN THE KITCHEN LIKE A MATURE ADULT! TRY IT SOMETIME!" 

"THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING--"

"ENOUGH!" Roy exploded. "EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP, GO TO YOUR FUCKING ROOMS, AND GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP!" 

The two stood there, neither wanting to be the first to back down. 

Lili's phone buzzed and she finally checked it. "It's Matthias…he's been trying to get a hold of me all day." She reported, as if anyone asked or cared. 

She proceeded up the staircase as she answered the phone, the sound of her sweet voice fading away upstairs. 

Ludwig bent down to lift up Beethoven--against his will--and carry him to their guest room. 

***

At last, the trip was finally over. They rode in silence on the jet home, keeping to seperate parts of the cabin. In no time, their plane arrived at the Tomato Stansted Airport. 

"Can we stop to get something to eat?" Ludwig requested as they walked through the airport, their reflections visible on the shiny waxed floors. 

"No. Matthias is going to meet us and I don't want to keep him waiting too long." 

"What? When were you going to tell me about this?" Ludwig exclaimed, summoning his hearing aids as he ran to catch up to her. "It would be unfortunate if your precious boyfriend were to find out you were lying." Lili only rolled her eyes as they approached the meet up area. 

Matthias was there, and he was surrounded by other brown people, who Ludwig assumed must've been his family members. There was a whole gaggle of kids, jumping around and having way too much energy. The short woman next to him tapped on his shoulder and pointed in their direction. Matthias turned to look at them, and waved with a big, stupid smile on his face. He, the short woman, some other dude, and one of the kids held up the signs they had been holding under their arms.

LILI, WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Ludwig was frozen in shock, while Lili's hands slowly found her face. She bolted over to Matthias and collapsed into his arms. From where Ludwig stood, he watched the happiest man alive slip an engagement ring on Lili's finger. He watched them share a passionate kiss. He watched the other family members and a few other onlookers cheer and hug them too. 

Ludwig stood alone, awkwardly rocking on his heels, at a loss for what to do. Roy appeared beside him, Joseph perched on his translucent hip. He placed a heavy hand on Ludwig's shoulder. 

Nothing good can come of this, he thought.