This is a dream, and thus its relevance to canon is, as always, questionable. 🙂

🎃

Regine was having a lovely dream where the gathered Grigori scholars were praising her genetic studies of half-breeds.

“Fascinating,” one murmured, and

“Brilliant.  To get such done in such a short scope of time!” and

“How clever.  And to wrap it up in teaching them and bettering the world, so that these half-breeds can be useful, for once.”

Something was a little off about this dream.  Regine’s smile, of course, did not shift.  She would not be Grigori if she allowed a little discomfort to get to her.

“And look, you have some actual pure-breeds in there.  How did you manage that?  Yourself, of course, it’s easy to provide your own – oh, but I see you have very little of your own genetic material.  Well, wouldn’t want to improve the stock too much, now would we?”

“And do you know,” murmured a woman near her, “what happens when a particularly strong line of pure-bred mixes with a weak line?”

Regine didn’t recognize the woman.  That happened, from time to time.  People would come in for a forum, then leave for another decade or three or seven to pursue their work.  Regine herself had done that, before-

Before-

She looked at the woman again.  “I believe the stronger line takes hold, yes?  If the line is strong enough-”

“It is just like breeding with a human, indeed.  Sometimes you end up with a trait or two of the other line, but they are most often discarded as being something of ‘nurture’, as they say, rather than ‘nature.’  The very interesting cases are when, say, a Hunter breeds with a ‘Mara’.  Then what do you have?  A half-breed?  A Hunter?  Or a Mara?”

“It would depend on the strength of both bloodlines…” Regine answered slowly.  That had been, as far as she was aware, the case with Feu Drake.  Then again, with Drake everything was speculation.  He gave nothing away but genetic material.

“Indeed.  And if it is a Shepherd and a Grigori, where almost all of the Changes are mental, it becomes even harder to tell.  You end up with something that, as they say, ‘looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…’ but has the sensible disregard for anything outside of itself and its crew of a falcon.  Ah, I miss your mother.”

“My-  I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“That daughter of yours.  Liliandra. It’s a pity she’s slightly unstable.  Otherwise she’d be the splitting image of her grandmother.  And how very clever of you, to blame her violent tendencies on the father!”

Regine shook herself awake and stared, unseeing, at the ceiling above her.  It was said you never dreamed of someone you didn’t know. 

Of course, she reassured herself, it was also said that you should not eat right before bed.  She would have to remember to avoid those lovely cookies, nice as they were.  That had to be it.  The cookies. 

She lay back down, but found that she was unwilling to sleep more that night.