CHAPTER 22
Feel Again – Kina Au/Ra
Demetri watched Felix with amusement as his friend tried with no success to pay courtly attention to Leah Clearwater. They were on a private tour of the Uffizi, the famed gallery was closed from tourists for the day. It was both amusing and embarrassing in that second-hand way.
"What would you like to do next?," Felix asked l, after a bruising round of silent treatment as the burly vampire followed her around keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
"I would like to be left alone," Leah answered firmly.
"Now, now, ladies are so much more attractive when they are also approachable," Felix said. Even to Demetri, he sounded condescending.
"Meaning?" Leah asked, although she knew exactly what he meant.
Felix paused before answering, "You're not very approachable." He brought his face closer to hers, trying a low seductive voice.
"And yet, you're here," Leah said, unaffected.
"You'll have to forgive me," putting a hand on his chest, sounding sincere. "I don't know what force brings me to be near you. One doesn't struggle against heaven. I can't resist your smile. You are beautiful, charming, adorable…"
"'She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris'," Leah quoted. "Madame Bovary. If you're going to plagiarize, aim for something that isn't required reading for English Lit 101."
At that, Demetri had to stifle a laugh. Both turned to him. Felix glowered at him. Leah stared blankly, before turning around to walk away.
They walked with the others for a short distance, and somehow only Demetri noticed when Leah quietly broke from the group. He followed her silently into a store, and waited until she paid for her items.
"What are those?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"A sketchbook and some pencils. If I'm going to be stuck here a while, I need to draw. It's this or murder. I haven't decided yet."
Part of Demetri was surprised she answered him at all.
"And a book?," he asked.
"A journal. And a pen that hopefully writes well. I hate writing with shitty pens," she shrugged.
Ah! "Do you journal frequently?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"Yes, I do. It helps me to focus. It makes things feel a lot less overwhelming."
Demetri resolved to hunt for the she-wolf's journals. This can lead to better understanding her. A gold mine to her secrets.
A few steps outside, a girl was crying. She was young, maybe a teenager still or early twenties at most. Her friend was trying to comfort her.
Leah gleaned that the girl's shoe fell apart, and that she was meeting a boyfriend. There was something about this scene that touched Leah. The girl was so young and so hopeful, so naïve and devastated. Leah was once like her, until she had banished feelings of love and intimacy with another person. She remembered how to love this way.
She approached and asked in Italian if the girl would like her shoes. They looked like they were the same size. They were new and had only been worn that day. She even joked how they hadn't been broken in.
The girl refused at first, then agreed.
Demetri stood and watched the encounter. This quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman was kind. Cantankerous and vulgar, yes, but also kind. He pondered this revelation while following behind a bare-footed Leah.
"I need shoes," she paused and said out loud. Maybe to herself, maybe to him, he wasn't sure.
"This way," he tilted his head to a store nearby.
Later, when Leah was once again in a pair of shoes, he remarked, "That was very kind of you."
Leah snorted, "Oh, please. She and her boyfriend will probably break up in like a week. Wasted my shoes, but at least I won't have to listen to her snivel." She flipped her hair off her shoulder.
"I didn't know you spoke Italian," he said in the language.
"You assumed I didn't speak Italian," she replied.
Demetri opened his mouth to retort, but Leah veered into another store. He followed her into a bookstore. She picked up a biography of Letizia Battaglia and a book titled Difficult Women. She traced a finger on the spine of a third about global warming. As she paid for all three, Demetri turned his thoughts. He knew of her reading habits.
"I find it odd, your fascination with these human trends," Demetri remarked, genuinely curious, as they began walking to rejoin the others.
"Trends?" Leah's eyebrow shot up at his dismissive tone.
"Yes, trends. Feminism. Violent acts. Science."
"These are trends?" Leah asked, incredulously.
"Well, yes. Perhaps because you are so young into the world. But over the many centuries, I have seen many movements, revolutions, and schools of thought, that simply die out. Or if they succeed, their importance shall fade in a short amount of time, replaced by another urgent happenstance, or by a more current innovation."
They turned down a street. She can see the others now. The vampires covered from head to toe in their attire. They looked stylish, but so very strange in the crowd of normally dressed humans who kept glancing their way.
Leah pondered her reply, or whether she should say anything at all.
"I don't know about having many centuries like you, but you sound incredibly jaded. I would have thought that having many centuries of seeing the world change and transform would make you excited rather bored."
"It did for a time, I suppose. But then things always end the same way. Technology's relevancy is determined solely by its recency. Inequality is as old as the struggle against it."
"That doesn't mean that the fight for equality isn't worth having. Or that progress should stop, just because its effects are temporary."
"Another issue arises, just as soon as one is solved. It is never-ending. Or perhaps I should say that the ending is always the same."
"At risk of sounding cliché, it isn't the ending that matters, it's the journey. You get to be part of pieces that get laid down. So maybe someone else will invent something better. They'll do that using the brick you laid down as a stepping stone."
"You're right. That is cliché. And you should have been a lawyer."
Leah smiled genuinely. And for some reason that he couldn't explain, it made him feel lighter knowing that he can draw emotion aside from antipathy from Miss Clearwater.
"Perhaps the failure can be attributed to the intemperate nature of mankind," Demetri proposed, just as they joined the others.
"Humans are very weak-minded and selfish," Edward chimed in. Demetri wished he hadn't. It seemed that Miss Clearwater did not appreciate the uninvited rejoinder. Truthfully, neither did he.
"Humans cause a lot of problems," Leah said, not appreciating Edward smirking dismissively at her comment. "But they also do a lot of good. All the bad is caused by human actions. All the good is also caused by human actions. The source of inequality is man-made. So are its solutions."
"What are you all talking about?" Seth asked.
"My opening argument in defense of humankind," Leah answered. She and Demetri shared an amused look.
NOTE: Usually, when Leah is paired with a vampire, she gets taught things like languages, history, etc. I wanted this to be different where she is already firm in her beliefs and have knowledge on her own. I want Demetri's cold apathy matched with her hot passion, where she is teaching him things even though he's centuries older than her, challenging, and changing him.
Next chapters are Felix's.
