I didn’t stay unconscious for long, finding myself sprawled on top of the unfortunate vampire following our collision moments ago. Though I got off relatively uninjured for my troubles, she seemed to take the brunt of the impromptu tackle, getting knocked unconscious if her light snoring was anything to go by. She was still alive, then — a good sign.

I looked the girl over, who still looked frighteningly adorable as earlier — a sentiment I never thought I’d hold for a literal blood-sucking creature of the night I was sent to neutralize. As I put on a show of restraining her for my soldiers’ benefit, I idly mused about how my current position would’ve been more enjoyable were we both in more comfortable attire, enjoying a mutual cuddle with a cleaned-up version of the vampire snoozing peacefully beneath me, but alas, I had a job to do.

“Gabriel!” I called out to my aide, who promptly rushed over with his sword still drawn. “We’re taking this one in. Not every day we get to play around with one of these alive,” I instructed, to which he responded with an affirmative grunt.

With him were a few of our own soldiers, among them the nice young woman I mentioned previously. I gestured for the group to take the vampire off my hands, but pointed at the woman and asked: “You, what’s your name?”

“Me?” she asked, looking confused. “Oh. Agnes, sir!”

“Agnes, then,” I prompted, trying my best to sound as amicably nonchalant as I could. I figured I’d get started with the whole socialising business I’d reserved for when we got settled into our billets, and if I’d read my previous social encounters right, women apparently liked that affable, carefree attitude about me. I wasn’t about to stop now. “Report to me when everything’s settled, I’ll be having you take care of anything she needs.”

“Aye, sir!” she replied with a curt but enthusiastic salute, and I got off the vampire to let my men get on with restraining her. All in all, this was a surprisingly productive day — having accomplished what would've normally taken me a few weeks to a month in any other case, with the target in question being very much alive and in captivity. That was big as far as these assignments typically went, as my fellows were more likely to just charge in and kill whatever manner of monster they found (or die, themselves). I didn’t want to get too cocky about it, but I had a feeling this might’ve been the beginning of a very fruitful, illustrious, and grand career in the order — my very own heroic adventure to be passed on for generations to come. I was way off the mark, though, as it wasn’t really my heroic story at all.

No, I’m not mad about it. Why would I be mad about it?

Anyway — with the situation under control, me and my merry little heavily armed band were back on our way to the local militia garrison with our vampire guest in tow. The fact that she was ever-so-conveniently delivered to my figurative lap without any casualties was a massive stroke of luck, I thought idly. Hindsight is crystal clear, as they say, but if we’d handled that any differently, I honestly couldn’t say how things would’ve progressed from there.

We arrived at the garrison, a modest stone building that looked more like a miniature keep than anything, where we were met by a portly old man in the uniform of a local militia officer, apparently tasked with handling our reception. My aide was still in a rather animated discussion with a few of the soldiers who didn’t really do much after I inadvertently body-checked the poor vampire into submission, so it fell to me to speak up this time.

“Good day, sir!” I said in the same amicably nonchalant tone as usual. It wasn’t just women this particular trick worked on, as I'd learned over the years. Since knights and nobles in general apparently had something of a reputation for being rude and haughty, it came as a surprise to the old man to find one such knight even give a damn about a lowly commoner. To be fair, he would've been right — I didn’t actually give a damn, but if a little kindness can grease the wheels of bureaucracy to my favour, then so be it. “As you can see, we’ve an unexpected guest with us today, so I was wondering if our quarters had an attached cell or two we could use?”

The old man stared blankly for a moment, the gears in his head audibly turning as he processed the sight of the vampire currently being dragged along by Agnes and another one of the men. He nodded hesitantly.

“You’re… from the order?”

“Yes.”

“We were told to expect you, but…” the man’s voice trailed off, casting his gaze down in apparent embarrassment. “We weren’t expecting you to deal with it so quickly… Yes, your barracks has a few holding cells attached.”

“Wonderful, thank you kindly!” I smiled. “Show us the way, please."

***

Our accommodations weren't anything special, but they were definitely a nice change of pace from the usual spartan accommodations and outdoor camps so-favoured by my fellows in the order. My men were quartered together in a mid-sized barrack, while the vampire girl was given a space of her own in the form of an attached holding cell. I, of course, had my own quarters amongst the town militia’s officers, with my aide’s room conveniently placed right across from my own.

I was reading up on the briefs they intended to give us upon our arrival, details that probably would’ve been more helpful if we still needed to search for our vampiric captive, but I figured getting to know as much about our lovely guest as possible was prudent. I still wasn’t sure what exactly we were going to do with her, or what my earlier intention to “play around with one of these alive” ought to mean, but before I could start trying to answer these questions, I was interrupted by a knock on my door.

“Agnes wants to make her report, sir,” Gabriel said in his usual gruff voice, directing an accusatory expression in my direction before stepping away from the door. Agnes took his place, who, after making an enthusiastic salute, stepped through the threshold and into my room.

“Yes?” I asked with my usual carefree smile. I noticed she was dressed in more comfortable attire, wearing a white cotton tunic fastened at the waist with her scabbard's leather belt and a tasteful pair of black stockings — an ensemble I usually only saw on my male colleagues. I liked it, a lot, and it suited the soldier’s upbeat mannerisms well. These were casual clothes, though still markedly utilitarian, and I made a mental note to keep my preference for this attire in mind in future amorous escapades.

She took a deep breath before speaking, seeming just a little nervous as she stood at attention in front of my desk. I nodded warmly, gesturing for her to go on.

“...following the previous incident, the manifestation was captured alive and uninjured after a brief pursuit through the town’s governance and trade districts,” she said with apparent practised professionalism, though the fact that I could tell she practised her report beforehand spoke volumes of her inexperience. Oh right, manifestation referred to the vampire, by the way. We couldn't exactly be bothered to say manifestation of beliefs all the time, so we usually said the former half or some variation of the word monster. “No casualties sustained.”

Agnes seemed to ponder something for a while, staying silent for a few awkward moments before jolting herself back to full awareness. “Except you, sir. Wait, were you injured?”

“No, I’m fine. I appreciate your concern, though.” I said, flashing her another carefree smile as I set the documents in my hands down on the table. I stood up, noticing her slightly startled reaction with wry amusement, and walked to the other end of the room, where I pretended to shine my chestplate without a care in the world. This seemed to put her off balance, as I'd planned, so I decided to keep up the pressure.

“How’s our guest?” I asked, heaping seemingly idle (if a little ominous) vague questions on top of the weird positions we were both conversing from, all of which caused another awkward pause before she continued, this time with a bit of a stammer in her voice.

“S-still unconscious, but she doesn’t seem injured. Like, at all. It’s weird.”

“Weird?”

“I mean…” she hesitated, her facade of professionalism utterly shattered by this point. Good, I was doing well so far. “You did fly into her pretty hard, and you knocked her into the ground head-first. We thought she’d get a concussion or something, but nope! She’s in tip-top shape!”

“You think she’ll wake up soon, then?” I asked, continuing my casually intimidating, mildly affable charade by shining the exact same spot on my armour so much, it probably started giving off its own light.

“Yes! I mean — yes, sir.”

As if on cue, my aide knocked on the door and stepped half through the threshold, glancing around for a bit before he found me wiping away at my armour. He raised a questioning eyebrow in my direction, wordlessly reminding me that he’d already done that a while ago, to which I only shrugged.

“Bloodsucker’s awake, sir.”

“I’ll be right there, we’ll be done soon,” I replied, gesturing for him to leave the room. He did, and I turned back to face the woman eyeing me a tad apprehensively. The intimidation part of my dastardly devious, roguishly romantic strategy was working like a charm, so I decided it was time to ramp things up a little, taking measured steps toward her with a deliberately blank face — all aimed at flustering and confusing her even more.

As I approached, she turned away from me with an adorably flushed face, visibly tensing up with every step I took in her direction. She was nervously mumbling about whether or not she messed up somehow, which I ignored as I got closer.

I stopped just short of a foot away from her, noting how I was apparently a full head taller than she was, and placed a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder. She jumped about a mile in surprise, flustered and uncertain for a while, squirming as she desperately tried to look at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world before our gazes met. We held this tension for a while, and she visibly relaxed — the faint beginnings of a smile creeping its way through her lips.

As I congratulated myself on a job well done, I thought idly about whether or not I was taking this whole intimidating, mysterious, roguishly handsome friendly young knight thing too far. I mean, I was technically her boss, and given the reputation knights and nobles had for being authoritative dickheads, this whole scenario was ripe for misunderstanding, wasn’t it? The whole commander-and-his-soldier-getting-a-little-too-friendly cliche, with another social status difference thrown into the mix? What if she felt like I forced her into this?

I didn’t give myself the time to ponder this though, as I abruptly ended the moment with a few not-so-gentle platonic pats on her shoulder, eliciting a surprised little yelp from the young woman I couldn’t help but find absolutely adorable. I gave her my biggest, dumbest, friendliest smile (with teeth and all) before I spoke.

“Good job, Agnes!” I said, letting out a mirthful chuckle as I walked off to don my surcoat and scabbard, bringing my sword along with me in case we had to get hands-on with the vampire girl. I turned to the young woman in my room, this time giving her a genuine smile as she released all the tension in her body with a grand sigh of relief. “I’ll be counting on you to take care of her in the future. For now, though, let’s introduce ourselves to our little guest, shall we?”

Before she could respond, I was already leaving the room, devising another dastardly-devious-intimidating-mysterious-roguishly-handsome-friendly-young-knight routine for the silver-headed vampire’s benefit, smiling ear-to-ear with a renewed ego boost from the blushing young woman trailing a few paces behind me.

My aide squinted his eyes at me as we entered the hallway, and if his expression before could be called accusatory — the one he had on this time was just downright disgusted.