Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733
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Prologue – Jasper POV
I walked down the narrow street in Philadelphia, rain drenching my hair and the shoulders of my shirt, my hands thrust deep in the pockets of my jeans. Damn, damn, damn. I knew this was a bad idea. It felt especially strange to be out in the daytime, seeing as I’d spent most of the past century waiting until darkness or a battle was upon me to move about. Today, it had seemed like an alright idea, though. It had been very murky and gloomy-weathered for the past few days, and today had promised to be the same. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on the weather going from dark to soaking wet in mere minutes, and though I wasn’t in danger of exposing myself due to sunlight, being out in the rain for an extended period of time would definitely not appear “natural”, however unaffected I might be.
My eyes searched for a place to shelter until the worst of the rain passed, and I was thankful that my eyes were dark from attempting to fast from human feeding once again. (It had seemed to be going better than the previous time, but who knew how long that would last?) At last my gaze fell upon a tiny diner on the side of the road with a neon sign that flashed FRAN’S DINER. It was tiny, and held eight people at the moment, including the increasingly bored waitress popping gum behind the counter that seated up to five people at a time. My eyes darted back and forth for a few seconds, and then I quickly ducked into the little hole in the wall.
I stood silently in the doorway, trying to appear normal, brushing off my hair and shoulders (as though that would help them to dry any faster. I looked about for a fraction of a second, taking in the occupants and their respective feelings: a mother holding a wailing infant (exhaustion on both parts), three men about my age in the corner (incoherency from intoxication), a man in a floppy hat drinking from a mug of coffee tapping his fingers on the table (impatience), the blonde waitress popping her gum (boredom), and…
A young woman slightly younger than me, though she appeared child-sized to me, with short, jet-black hair and pale skin lightly sat perched upon a high stool. She wore a midnight blue long-sleeved dress that fell to her knees, and a slate grey coat lay folded on the stool next to her. She looked up at me and my eyes widened slightly. I registered from the paleness of her skin and the flawlessness about her in general that she was definitely one of my kind, but there was something different about her… Her eyes… I thought, quickly, but before my mind had even had a chance to ponder the gold of her eyes, she was up off of her stool, walking toward me.
I stiffened. Is she going to attack me? Surely not… not with all these people… But no… she was smiling; her entire face seemed lit by a smile that graced her angelic features, and there was a slight bounce in her step as she made her way slowly toward me. I braced myself for what was to come; I reached out to taste the emotions in the air, hoping it would give me a clue as to her intentions.
What I felt shocked me to the core… her emotions were far from malicious, about as far as they could possibly be. If anything, she seemed relieved, with a hint of elation, though I couldn’t imagine why. She came to a stop just in front of me, and as she tilted her head slightly to the side, I allowed myself to examine her physical appearance a little more closely. For one, she was tiny, especially compared to my 6’3” frame. I’d always been tall, but she seemed especially small standing in front of me. I took in her dress; blue suited her well, bringing out ever so subtle tints of beige in her pale skin. I wondered a bit at the hair, though. Though I was becoming more accustomed to women wearing their hair in shorter styles, as they were these days, this girl’s hair seemed rather strange. Why so short? And why did she have it arranged in such an odd way, with tufts seeming to stick out at every angle? Why…
My thoughts were interrupted as this radiant creature spoke for the first time, her high, clear voice ringing like bells in my ears. “You’ve kept me waiting a long time.”
My eyes widened and my mouth fell open slightly as I stared at her. Then, I realized what I was doing. I’d kept a lady waiting on me, no matter that I hadn’t known. Where are my manners? I chided myself, as I nodded slightly, speaking for the first time in weeks. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” I apologized, my fingers reaching up to touch my head. Remembering the absence of a hat, I ran them through my wet hair instead. I looked guiltily at the floor, but a high-pitched “hee” caused me to look up.
I paused in confusion. She had her hand outstretched toward me, her face slightly apprehensive, but demure. The emotions I felt pulsing from her were completely opposite of those I’d felt for the last century. For a century, I had felt nearly nothing but bitterness, fear, and hatred. The emotions coursing through her, and by extension, through me, were like nothing I’d felt before. Without stopping to think about what I was doing, or who this creature might be, I reached out and took her small hand in mine. It fit so perfectly I’d have sworn her hand had been sculpted exactly to match mine, and in that moment, my heart soared with a feeling I hadn’t known since I was human – a feeling that lifted me up and washed away all the pain and bitterness that had been my life for so long. Hope.