Windora: Do you regret being a vampire?

Windora: Do you regret being a vampire?

A tear rolled down Lux's cheek. She did not realize she was crying until it fell on her hand. Her eyes grew wide, and she grabbed a pocket mirror to see if she was indeed crying.  One tear turned into a second one, and soon enough, Lux was sobbing in the train. She quickly grabbed a tissue and covered her face, long enough for her to stand up and rush to the train's toilet. She locked herself in and looked at her crying reflection in the mirror.  The redhead rarely cried from sadness. She had cried before, out of frustration about the way the vampire court treated her. 

She had cried before, at the murder of her lover, but these tears reminded her of an old conversation she had had a couple of centuries ago with her older brother Alceste.  She remembered the heavy scent of the centuries-old furniture of their boudoir.  She remembered sitting on a beautiful burgundy couch, a book in her hand, while Alceste was smoking, sitting across the room with the human newspapers in hand. It was a quiet evening, the moon was still young, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with an intense guilt and sadness. It made her cry a couple of tears that fell on the pages of her book and elicited a curious gaze from her brother. 

"What's wrong, sister?"

"Uh... Memories of a distant past. I--- Haven't felt like this in a millennium." -She marveled and retrieved a pocket handkerchief from her dress to dab her tears away.-

"Memories of a distant past, uh? Do you remember how you turned into a vampire?"

"Only that I was given the choice. I do not remember why I forsook the gods I believed in, but I do remember how I felt. It was a pain like no other, a loss so deep and so brutal that it scarred my soul for eternity. I remember wishing I were dead, and then, I remember I wanted to live, but I did not want to feel that pain anymore.  Do you remember why you turned?"

"I hated mankind. I hated the life I was leading. The pain, the injustice... My life was meaningless as a human, and I found meaning in existence with you and our father. I remember how angry I was, and perhaps this anger still lingers to this day. Do you regret parts of the human experience?"

"Not everything." She kept wiping the bloody tears off her face and then felt her lips quiver. "When I was with Paolo, I felt regret for the first time. I wanted to grow old with him. I wanted to die of old age with him.  My nature makes it impossible for me to savor how precious life can be. He died, and any other fragile creature I have ever been with, all whithered and died. I remained untouched and all the same as the day I was turned. I regret this. Mortality."

"That's why I will never have a human lover unless I can turn them into a vampire. I don't know what you lost when you were still human, but I can tell that the pain of that loss still lingers. I truly hope, dear sister, that you would not fall in love with another human. We barely managed to save you from yourself. I don't think we would be able to stop you again." 

His voice was stern, but she could tell he was worried, given the way his knee was shaking uncontrollably. Lux laughed, a genuine laugh that alleviated her heart. Her tears kept rolling down her cheeks nd she kept wiping them off with the back of her hand until she stopped moving. She then looked at him, gave him a soft smile, and stood up. Her face looked a mess, so she had to clean herself up. 

"Don't worry. I don't intend to fall in love ever again."

The memory faded, and she was back in front of her reflection. Did she really promise Alceste she would never fall in love again? Lux was sincere when she said these words. She wanted to shield her heart from the pain of losing someone she loved, and for centuries, it worked. For centuries, Lux refrained from falling in love with a mortal soul. She would only enjoy their company, enjoy what they had to offer, which was their blood and sometimes sex. And she would try to convince herself that she was happy like this. She would try to convince herself that it was the right way to go. And it worked. It worked so well until... 

Jake. Jake crashed into her life like a wrecking ball. She believed that it was just going to be a one-night stand. It was just going to be some fun moments, a blink of an eye, and she would be on her merry way. She thought he was just some temporary fun, but reality hit her like a brick wall. What was meant to be a one-night stand turned into an unbearable loss that prompted her to find him again. She could not bear to be away from him for far too long. It amused her at first, and she branded him her special human. She had sparkles in her eyes, tingles going down her spine, and into her loins at the mere thought of him. Her heart was skipping several heartbeats, and her brain was filled with memories of Jake Winchester. Quickly enough, she grew attached to him, to the idea of being his Cara. To the idea of being his and only his. Quickly enough, she no longer saw him as a pleasant distraction and acknowledged that she wanted to share her heart with him. Quickly enough, she realized that she had fallen in love with him. 

That shook her to her core. How could she be in love after a century spent trying to avoid it? She tried to run away from Jake upon realizing her feelings and used the excuse of her current investigation and the matters of the vampire court to effectively leave. Yet, even miles away from Jake, the only thing she wanted was to go back to him. The only thing she needed was to be in his arms. Jake... So foolishly human. So full of contradictions and pain. So full of darkness and light.  He was a kindred spirit, a soul so tortured and yet still capable of love. A soul still capable of good, one she wanted to bring peace to. One she wanted to bring comfort to. One she wanted to heal.  Her tears kept rolling down her cheeks, and she sobbed like a child upon seeing her reflection. She dropped her head, hands holding onto the sink, and simply sobbed. She could not do it again. She could not fall in love with a mortal because if she did, then the same heartbreak would come again. 

Paolo's death led her to the doorsteps of suicide. She wanted to join him in death, could not see a point in living if the soul she loved so dearly was no longer here. Her brother and father fought her, literally and figuratively speaking. They fought so she would remain. They fought so she would not die and leave them alone. They fought so she could see that life was still worth living, even after millennia walking the Earth. She survived this, barely so. She survived this only to fall in love again with another mortal. The idea of losing Jake was unbearable to Lux. She could not fathom going on with her life without him here. Yet what could she do if not let Life do its thing? She refused to turn him into a vampire because it was his wish. He refused to be turned and clung to his humanity. Who was she to trample over his dignity? She would not turn him, but that meant losing him. 

Lux wailed and slowly fell on the toilet's floor.  She wrapped her arms around her frame and pulled her knees up to her face so she could cry into her knees. The only other solution to her pain would be to give up on her immortality and become human again.  This idea shook her to her core, almost made her nauseous to the point of throwing up. She loathed being human and what it entailed. The pain she felt before she turned was still clinging to her bones, still reminding her how being human felt. She remembered the hopelessness, the fear, the disgust, and the void in her heart from her loss. While she could no longer remember what happened to Human Lux, she could still feel it. How could she go back to being like this? How could she wish for a life of misery? 

For Jake, she could. The idea that she could become mortal and lose her powers just so she could be with him was appealing. The idea that she might live a meaningful life with someone who loved her and was willing to share his life with her until the bitter end was appealing. The idea that maybe being human was not the disaster her whole being believed it was when you were with the right person. It was a risk to take, one where perhaps Jake would no longer want her in his life, and she would have given up her immortality for nothing. One where he would grow tired of her, could drop out of the surface of the Earth one cold morning with nothing but her tears for company. There was a chance he broke her heart, and then what? 

Lux was too proud to go back to her Sire and ask him to bite her again. She would rather die than endure this humiliation.  She would rather die than live with that heartbreak for eternity. She would rather die than experience again what humanity gave her. So the idea of becoming human again left her mind as suddenly as it appeared. The truth was that for a brief moment, she went as far as wishing to be human again so she could live with Jake, and the reality of her feelings for him slapped her in the face. She was in love with this human. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to care for him. She wanted to share her life with him and even went as far as considering being human again for him, and that triggered an ancient pain, an old memory of loss and emptiness that made her cry. Was it her destiny? To lose all of the people she had ever loved?  Was it her destiny to live with this unshakable pain that would remind itself to her ever so often? There was pain in love, but oh, her heart craved it and was willing to go through the ordeal for Jake. 

Her special human...

The love of her life....

Jake Winchester.

-TBC-