To Love and To Be Loved (A Jasper Hale/ Whitlock Love Story)

Living

Traveling with Jasper was so much more than I ever could've dreamed of. We did everything we wanted and so much more.

We danced, and we listened to music, and we went to festivals, and we got way too many books, and we got so many things, we had to keep sending packages home filled with objects and clothes we didn't need anymore as they were replaced by more we bought in all these new places. We talked too much, and we saw all these ridiculously touristy things like Big Ben, and I was constantly writing--especially when we drove from one place to another. I had gotten myself a sketch book before we even left Forks, knowing I'd want a way to show Alice all the places we were.

We went from Ireland to Scotland and then traveled down to England, and I was excited to see how much it had changed. Then we made an almost-circle to Belgium, then through Germany, where we went to see the camps from World War two, and I swear, feeling the negative energy and hearing those stories nearly made me burst into vampire-tears again.

Then we continued to brush through Poland and the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia, stopping in Croatia for a moment before boating over to Italy, then coming back north to go through Switzerland, and so there we were in Paris, France, where we finally decided to stop for a day.

We had been going so fast, only stopping for a short while here and there, and as vampires, not needing to sleep or eat or rest, except for a hunt every few days, it was easy. We were documenting, though, all the places we wanted to go together again one day, to stay in and to truly slow down and visit. We already had quite a list.

We spent time at the Louvre, and I sketched out all the phenomenal structures, taking extra time to sketch out the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower.

It was amazing to be out there with Jasper, and it was amazing to hear the stories he had of what he had learned about all the history, and to see him as in-awe as I was, his expression of wonder and curiosity matching my own, his curiosity peaking every now and again as he dragged me to see something he caught sight of.

After Paris, we traveled south to go through Spain, and then we took a ferry over to Morocco and through Algeria. We went through Libya, and I found myself slightly nostalgic when we passed through Egypt.

Jasper asked if I wanted to stop to visit my old coven, but I felt... uncertain. Instead, we went to see the pyramids and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali and the ruins of the Library of Alexandria, and I told him we'd come back to visit my old coven some other time.

We kept on the down-low through the entire trip, of course, but I kept an entire notebook to record anything and everything we came across regarding other people like Renesme. We didn't hear or find much at all until we reached Kenya and we came across a coven there while hunting.

They were curious about our diet, and about my gift.

"You are warm," one noted as she took my arm and held it gently and looking at it as though in wonder. I knew I was a couple degrees warmer than other vampires, but I had been warm for a human, as well. Others would often think I had a fever when I didn't, I was consistently just one to three degrees warmer than everyone else. I figured it just transferred over to while I was a vampire. But I never thought I'd be specifically happy about it until it bought us information. "I have seen beings like you before."

"Beings?" I wondered.

"Hybrid beings, not vampire, not human. Mutants."

"Where?" I asked, almost excited. I never thought I'd be glad for being misidentified as a 'mutant,' either.

"Long ago," she nodded. "Many stopped such things, many human mothers died."

"Are there any... hybrids that are still here?"