"Isn't death supposed to come to all of us eventually?" Shrugging, Mal focused on the storm outside with a neutral expression. It was a strange thing to have to shrug off effective immortality at the instruction of a collection of drones and mysteries. Vampires could die, of course, but they required very special circumstances to do so, and Mal had always hoped that she'd avoid both wooden stakes and beheading for hundreds of years. Now she was allegedly faced with death in perhaps fifty years and a body that tired far more quickly than she felt it should. It was irritating.

"But hope," she continued, "that we can certainly do, if you find that a worthwhile exercise."