[ The welling of surprise and bittersweet gratitude is as clear in Emmrich's mind and heart as it is in his face; Armand reads each with the same opaque expression, as if having made his confession, he's been forced to retreat back behind a necessary wall. Only his hands betray him; he brings them together to fiddle with the ring on his left hand, restlessly.

Does he wish to be mortal again? A question every vampire asks himself over and over down the advancing years. Armand has no easy answer. He'd begged for the Dark Gift before being turned, even before his illness, wanting to be as beautiful and eternal as the master he loved more than anything. Mortal life had only ever brought him pain and sorrow -- life as a vampire could surely not be worse.

How wrong he had been. ]

No. [ He says it softly, after a long moments of silence. ] No, I could not. Even if I could somehow survive the disease in my body -- the world I left behind as a mortal no longer exists. That boy no longer exists. I only know how to survive as I am now. The only reason I would seek mortality would be to seek a final end, the death that Amadeo survived. And I now know I cannot achieve that here.

[ He would enter the jaws of death only to be spat out again, perhaps growing worse and less himself with each attempt. ]

No, Professor. I am a vampire. I will always be a vampire. My kind are not meant to find absolution.