"Do you always have those knives?" asked Damien eventually.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Why?"

Aidan shrugged. "I got into the habit. I did some fighting, and even after I stopped that they were always useful, so I just started always carrying them."

"You fought?"

Aidan nodded. "A few times. I'm not really a fighter though."

Damien was silent for a time, then, "I couldn't ever," he said quietly. "My mom did, but... I couldn't ever."

"Why?" asked Aidan gently. He had a sudden memory then, of the old aerian Thomas coaxing reluctant answers out of him when he'd been young. Though not as young as Damien. He He felt sometimes as though he'd never been as young as Damien was.

Damien didn't answer right away. Then he said, almost whispering it, "Because I'm afraid."

A half dozen stock answers came to mind, trite reassurances that everyone was afraid sometimes, but Aidan didn't say any of them. He suspected the boy may have already heard them all. "Is being afraid a bad thing?" he said.

Damien gave him a look that said "What, are you stupid?" as clearly as words. "Yes."

"Why?"

Damien blinked. Why? He thought about it. "Because Mom isn't afraid."

Aidan couldn't keep from laughing softly. "No. She isn't. But most people aren't like your mother."

"You're not afraid!" said Damien.

Aidan shook his head. "I'm afraid all the time."

Damien gave him a disbelieving look. "No way. You said you fought! Like... fighting goblins and monsters and things! And you... you're a vampire, people are afraid of you!"

"Yes way," said Aidan with a smile. "And yes, I did fight, but I was scared out of my mind when I did, especially at first. I've been scared so many times I can't count them. Scared of being hurt, scared of dying, scared of something happening to my family, I've been scared for most of my life. I was even scared of vampires, once. Heck, I was scared of high places and scared of flying when I was younger."

"You were?"

Aidan nodded. "Yes. I wanted to fly so badly that eventually I tried it anyhow, but I was very scared the first time I did."

"I'm scared of flying too," said Damien. "Mom says I shouldn't be, that aerians aren't supposed to be, but I am."

"I don't know if aerians are supposed to be or not, but I sure was," said Aidan.

"How did you fly then?"

"I wanted to be sure the wings would work," he said, "so I jumped off of a wall, just a little low one, maybe three feet high. It was low enough that I would be okay if they didn't, but they did, I glided down. So I tried something a little higher, and then something a little higher than that. And I kept doing that until I wasn't scared any more. And eventually I learned how to take off from the ground, though that's hard to do at first, your wings aren't strong enough yet."