Rafe did not think he'd yet gotten used to the concept that he would no longer age. Frozen in time at the age of twenty-seven, and in all honesty he was vain enough to think that to be a good thing. Forever young, attractive, vital. Despite the way he'd been turned, he did not regret it, and he didn't think he ever would. Because well... he'd be dead instead of just Undead.
"Well, thank you," he said to her compliment on his playing. A smile curved his lips upward; he was proud of the way he'd improved. He'd never realized how nice it would be to garner praise that was truly deserved instead of just getting by with flash and flair and tricks to make his playing seem better than it was. "Are you a master at chess?" he wanted to know. Not that he'd know if she wasn't, because he knew nothing about it.
Rafe's eyebrows lifted slightly when she said she was a dhampir. He'd heard the term, knew what it meant, but as far as he knew there weren't any of them in the school. He watched curiously as she dropped her eyes, wondering why. Was there something wrong with being a half-breed vampire? It was possible that he hadn't been a vampire long enough to know these things, if there were indeed anything to know on the subject. It hadn't been covered in Supernatural History that he could remember. "Interesting," he remarked, and there was nothing snide or condescending in his tone. He was aware that the word interesting could be taken in more than one way.
"Yes, I remember you being in Music Club now that you mention it," he said. "Piano and violin... that's fairly impressive." He idly strummed the opening chords of 'Hallelujah'. Rufus Wainwright's version was his favorite.