Searching for stars

[Simone]

"Well, it's an interesting collection of myths, is it not? And who doesn't like vampires these days."
She went silent to then rephrase herself.
"I mean, I'm not exactly a die hard vampire fan, but when you do prefer the parts of history and legend that I do, it's hard not to have at least a tiny bit of interest."

[Balthazar]

"Yes it is."
He said, still smiling, thinking if interesting to hear what she had to say about the subject.
"But I'm more in to the modern vampire. It seems more realistic, don't you think?"

[Simone]

"Realistic? That's a funny way to put it."
She looked at him in a searching manner for a second before deciding to indeed continue.
"This might sound awfully pretentious, but bear with me. I'm quite convinced that the old legends seemed more realistic to the people living then..."

Simone seemed to check if he was listening before continuing.
"But I do find it interesting how a belief that was in the beginning quite frightening seems to have been modified to fit us in a time without any true hardship or mystery rather than the one beyond death, and instead, the thought of a dead man coming to life bothering us, it seems like the thought of cheating death is more attractive than frightening, giving our generation's vampires an amount of sex appeal rather than anything else."

Taking a sip of her coffee she finally finished.
"Or well, that's my theory anyway. However I do like how vampires perfectly seem to illustrate how our beliefs change with us as the society we live in changes."

[Balthazar]

"Now people are afraid of growing old. Perhaps believing in vampires is some kind of... Hope. But they cannot have them looking all creepy and dead. No. They have to look great! And they can't be killers. Well... They can't kill THEM anyway."
Balthazar smirked as he was bull shiting. But at the same time not. He did believe that people believed in vampires because of that reason. But he also knew the truth.
"But don't you think there could be some kind of truth to it?"

[Simone]

Although put differently, it seemed like Balthazar agreed with her, and so she nodded rather than asking him to explain further.

"Of course, most myths probably stem from some kind of real event or concern. There's a grain of truth to every lie and so on. It's hard to know though, but the more attractive part of the myth do seem to stem from legends of female demons, succubus if you will."
Although she had read quite a few stories of the incubus as well, but with mostly seeming to focus on infertility and pregnancy outside of marriage they weren't as interesting to her.

"And there one has to remember that in more than one culture the last Millenia female sexuality has been the enemy. When taking that into consideration, she-demons stalking the night seducing men and drinking their blood seems like a rather sense making boogie man."

[Balthazar]

Balthazar stopped himself from laughing out loud. Of course, for all he knew, there could be some she-demons out there, but he doubted it.
"I've never really taken any liking to those stories. They're too obviously made up. On the other hand I think I've heard of people finding human skulls with really large fangs, and such. Now that makes you think there might be some truth too it. To the vampires."

[Simone]

"In todays society with all we know today, of course they seem made up. But at the time they were as real as could be."
She was going to launch into a discussion about that too, but she stopped herself as she picked something up in that last sentence.
"... Balthazar, do you believe in vampires?"
She didn't completely succeed in keeping the humor out of her voice either.

[Balthazar]

"No I don't. But I find them very interesting, and much of it thanks too that they almost could be real, you know? If you take away the special powers, and sparkling skin, and all that, it could almost be true."
He thought for a while, and then added with a smirk:
"Well, perhaps I do believe in them."
He expected her to laugh at him.

[Simone]

"That's pretty adorable."
Simone concluded this out loud. Had she liked him less she probably would have used a less flattering adjective, but as it was, she'd go with adorable.
"Honestly though, I don't much see why the vampire myth would have any more basis in reality than any other. But I might just as well be the one that's wrong in that one. May I ask you a question in the matter however?"

[Balthazar]

"Yes, I am very adorable."
Of course Balthazar played with the idea of reviling his secret to Simone, but it was no more than day... Night dreaming.
"Sure. Ask away."

[Simone]

"I'm not going to say you're wrong..."
Because that's simply not how beliefs work, it made a lot more sense to accept that other people believed in things you didn't than try and convince them otherwise.
"But do you rationalize such simple problems as... If they exist, why don't we know about them?"
She was still way too interested in picking his brain in simple curiosity to not at least try and hear what he thought about those kind of mundane issues though.

[Balthazar]

"Well, of course, they don't want to let people know that they exist. So they hide what they are."
It felt quite strange talking about vampire like they didn't exist. Or at least to someone that didn't believe that vampires exist. Although one was sitting right in front of her.

[Simone]

"How about the blood drinking?"
She then asked as a follow up question.

[Balthazar]

"I'm sure they have ways to cover that up. Like killing for example."
He wrinkled his forehead, not really knowing a great explanation for how it really could be done, without mentioning how it really was done. Because that would be too much powery.

[Simone]

"Well my point is, if they kill people everytime they get hungry, that seems rather undiscreet. That's as if there was to be a police investigation for everytime I ordered thai food. Would look pretty suspicious."