Scarlet Lore

We do not Learn-Chapter 2

The dark night air was cold as it brushed against my bare arms. If I was still human, I likely would've shivered hard. That was one of the best things about vampirism, aside from the immortality and such. Still, it was awfully cold and while I wasn't vulnerable to the weather, the cold wasn't entirely comfortable.

"You know you were invited." I ignored the man behind me when he spoke up. I'd known he was there, Leif was not subtle of all things. It was easy to imagine him standing there, arms crossed, standing in some sleazy position but with concern knitted across his face. the image didn't make me less mad, necessarily but it did bring a smile to my lips. "I did not even know you and I were having some sort of tiff so you'll have to forgive me."

"You knew full well...what you did and you know full well that I'm not in the mood to talk." There was a small part of me that hoped that would be enough to get rid of him. Of course it would not, if Leif was anything he was stubborn-dedicated, he called it. He didn't give up on what he wanted and he wanted to keep playing this weird game we were playing no matter how destructive it was to both of it.

I stretched out slightly admiring the dress I was wearing with a smirk. It was pretty, something human Sine would have only dreamed about. besides that it was something to focus on other than Leif's presence. The blue silk was entrancing in the moonlight and I liked to imagine I looked the very image of Aphrodite though perhaps that was just the small human part of me reaching out.

"Well I was embarrassed. I told everyone you would be there."

"So you are upset because people do not think you are some respectable gentleman with a respectful wife? I hate to ruin the illusion for you but we are not a perfect couple and that the least worry for the people you are trying to impress." My stomach was aching and that served as just another reminder that we weren't human. The hunger was bubbling under my skin and no matter how hard any vampire tried it was no use playing happy families with that filling crawling up in their throats.

The sigh behind me was heavy, angry and tired. He was just homesick, I knew it but I did not want to accept it. Even so, I suspected I was much more open to the idea than he was. They had been created together and the blood ties were now held together by magic. We would need to go back to The Family sooner or later and Leif did not want to be the black sheep again. It was no excuse for his behaviour but it was a reasoning for it.

I felt the grass shift around me but ignored him still as he sat. If I made eye-contact, or even looked at him I suspected, all the sadness and sympathy would flow back and ruin the stance I was trying to take. "I miss Kelsey you know. The others too, I guess. But I miss them and their humanity, not the awful lot they are now."

"If they are an awful lot so are we. When you stop killing people you can talk about how horrid they are." Leif embraced vampirism and liked what it did for him. It did different things for different people and he was always ready to complain about what it did to his siblings. They became to standoffish, he said, to boring and cold. That was the way things went, vampires were either cut off from their strange human mentality or it escalated.

"You and I are fun though. We are loyal. I cannot say the same for them." As much as the inaccuracy of that statement annoyed me I didn't speak up. With fists clenched tightly at my side I let him go on. We would have to go back soon and it would be good for him to get it out of his system. It was better he said this to me, rather then Brandr or Finnr or even Erek once we got back.

Sneaking a glance at my friend now that he was more concerned about his constant family troubles than our arguments and my absence from the ball, I could see the fear all over his face. I loved his family, I didn't doubt that, even if he did not believe it but loving people who didn't return the love-whether that was a real or imagined slight-could destroy the strongest of people. Leif, despite his false face, was a slave to his emotions.