The Vampire Diaries: Little Shadow

Chapter 3

"Okay, I'll come, anyway you're by far the most interesting person I've ran into since I got away" Got away? From whom or where did she get away from? Maybe some other night...
  "Now before we go, I need you to be honest with me okay?" Somehow her eyes managed to get bigger and even more curious than they already were.
  "Oww-kay" she says full of curiosity and even a little bit of worry.
  "Have you got your thirst under control" I am dead serious, I want her to understand that this is important.
  "Oh that" she says full of ease "to be honest, I never had a problem with it, I lived for fourteen months after I turned with my family and never had a problem. I was near an accident scene like two months ago, blood was gushing out of this guy's mouth but I didn't feel thirsty, I just felt like throwing up, it was yucky. Actually thinking back now, I met another vampire once who was like a shark, a tiny paper cut and the guy drained that poor man of his blood before I could even comprehend what was going on. I actually thought that he was the abnormal one, but ahwell" she said raising her shoulders and tilting her head just a little bit.
"So if our waitress here has an 'accident' your fangs won't be showing at all?!"  I start feeling uneasy, taking her to Elena doesn't seem like a great idea any longer.
  "Nope" she says grinning "I don't think they will, not unless I want them to, which I don't"
   I go to the waitress and I tell her not to be afraid and not to move, I take the knife and cut her palm deep enough for there to be a considerable amount of blood, but not deep enough to leave a scar. The kid comes walking right up to us, she takes the waitresses' old hand to her nose, she takes in the oh-so-sweet scent of her blood and when I've seen that there is nothing, not even a flicker of flame in her eyes, she puts the waitress's hand under the sink, washes the blood and then puts a clean table cloth on her hand.
  I've never seen something like that, I've been away from human blood for decades now, but I still feel my fangs sharpening, but her, it was like playing doctors to her, unbelievable.

"Stefan?" she looks up at me, as we're walking home.
"Yes..." she looks down at her sneakers while she speaks.
"Do you think it's because I used to be a vegetarian, the reason why I don't react like you when there is blood. I saw your eyes, they changed, and you've been like this for like forever. It just doesn't make sense otherwise, like, I doubt it's my steel heart." that's it, that has to be it, why didn't I think of that.
  "Actually, now that you said it, it makes perfect sense, you're used to not giving your stomach what it craves and you've learned how to ignore it. Now I wish I'd been a vegetarian too." I sigh and she smiles, realizing how lucky she is.
  "Why were you vegetarian anyway?" I ask even though I do have a pretty good guess about that.
  "I AM vegetarian because I love animals. I do not think that my life matters more than theirs. I don't think they should die just for me to make a meal. I just—I don't know I—"  I could see this was something very important to her, I wasn't going to push her to explain with words something that can only be felt by heart.
"I understand you, I think that's pretty amazing" she looks down again, not pouting, just thinking.
  We get home, and as expected Elena was dead worried. Damon hadn't gotten back home yet, which makes me worried.
  "Hey there" says Elena, her voice becoming soft instantly as she bents down a little bit, even though it wasn't that necessary
  "Hi Elena" says Tatiana, assuming she was the pretty girl I'd told her about on our way home
  "You know my name...' Elena wonders out loud to herself.
  "Yeah, Stefan told me all about you, well not all, but a lot...you get my point" she had a pinch of awkwardness in her voice.
I decide to break the way bigger awkwardness going on with our other friends.
"This is Bonnie, Matt, Caroline and Jeremy" I tell her "why don't you guys hang out together for a little bit while Elena and I take a walk. Elena..." I look towards Elena when she fails to take my hint because she's too occupied looking at Ellie. "Right...let's walk" she rushes over to me.
"They're gonna be talking about me, aren't they" I look at the bunch of people who have obviously never seen a 13 year old.
"Yeah they totally are" says Matt, who's the first to remember that staring is rude "hey I never caught your name" he asks and smiles. Matt is nice.
"Yeah Stefan forgot to introduce me I guess, I'm Tatiana" that's the second time I've said my real name in a night.
"That's an adorable name" says the small one, was it Caroline or Bonnie?
"Thank you" and sorry for forgetting your name.
  "I'm sorry for barging in like that, I wasn't planning on it. Am I being a buzz kill? I'll just go stand over there if I'm interrupting something"
  "Oh please you just saved us, Caroline was using her vamp—" I smile at myself, oh Matt.
  "Her vampirism? Is that what you were gonna say? It's okay, you no longer are scared of vampires under your bed when you become one"
The blonde one spits out a mouth-full of—ummm ice tea? And then starts laughing. Is she like shady dude's girlfriend or something? God I wish I could smack her too, I can't help rolling my eyes.
"Wait let me guess, you think I'm a teensy chick who's seen too many movies, because my dear, poor, little heart beats normally. Have you ever met normal, blondie? Is this normal?" I run and grab her glass taking a huge gulp out of her glass.  It's not ice-tea, and my throat burns and I'm coughing and I can't breathe and my chest is on fire. Then the door makes a sound and Stefan is by my side asking everyone what's wrong, but they're all dumbfounded. I catch my breath and start feeling like a dumbass "It wasn't ice-tea" I tell Stefan
"It—WHAT?!"
I feel like an idiot who's just realized how dumb they've been their entire life, please don't make me say it again I beg silently on my head.
  "It—errr the drink Stefan..." I'll just have to say it again won't I "I kinda grabbed it out of Blondie's hand because she wouldn't believe me and I thought it was ice tea. I love ice-tea. It wasn't ice-tea"
 Jeremy was the first one to laugh at me, but hey, look at me getting his name right. I can't hold my head straight, I feel "my" blood rushing to my face, and I just can't look straight.
  They're all laughing; Jeremy's laugh has started to fade, while Bonnie is still laughing hard with her hand over her mouth, Matt's laugh is periodical and it comes out in outbursts that make me laugh too, Elena has a small but genuine laugh and even Stefan can't quite stop his chuckles despite his attempts. Now I can look up, because I no longer feel ashamed, their laughs are even more contagious than my dad's. Stefan puts both his hands on my shoulder, a gesture that says it's okay in an unspoken language, but I already know that, they seem like they don't want to stop laughing, like this is the first time in a long time, they might have started laughing at me, but I no longer was the cause of their laughter, it was the sudden realization that they were happy that made them laugh.
Again, to ruin something good, that dude shows up, he seemed nonchalant until he saw me.
  Everyone noticed him, even though he was quiet and not noticeable at all. Everyone tried to not give importance to his arrival, everyone but Stefan and Elena. Poor guys, their laughter vanished like it'd never been there. Who is this dude? Does he go around ruining people's happy moments? Someone has to take that cocky grin out of his face, if that has to be me, so be it. I've been asking for something interesting to happen to me this whole year, if making evil dudes get over themselves isn't interesting, I don't know what is.
   While I was busy redirecting my train of thoughts to the now, Stefan had gotten in front of me, blocking me from seeing the shady dude, actually for fairness' sake I have to rephrase that, he was blocking the shady guy from seeing me, not the other way around. To my surprise, and confusion Elena had a protective arm around me too. Hadn't Stefan told her about me?! Maybe there was something else they needed to talk about, who knows.
 "What is she doing here?" he said in the same tone I would have said "What the hell?!?! What is SHE doing here?" perhaps his voice had more death threat in it than I could ever possibly put in mine, but anyway you get my point...hopefully.
"I invited her, she will be staying with us. Damon you have to understand that she is under MY protection and that you can't touch as much as a hair out of her head, are we clear?" Stefan said that with the kind of anger and threat that my mom used to tell me to never climb to look out of the balcony when I was little.  Except this tall shady dude — named Damon, was not a 4 year old child.
"Brother careful, I might just take that as an invitation. And as far as I am concerned this is my house too. Bringing a stray creature into our beloved home isn't your call to make. Now you want to protect that" he says pointing at me " you take her back to where you found her"
"Yeah...that's not going to happen" says Elena and I honestly can't decide what freaks me out more, the dude who wants to probably kill me or the people standing up to him for me. For ME! They JUST met me! Do they even remember my name!
  I don't know how or why but when Elena spoke, Damon listened. Now that I had managed to escape from behind Elena's back, I almost understood why Damon shut up. That look of determination on her face, I've only seen something similar once before.
Damon nodded.
"Fine, you want to adopt a little puppy Elena, you can. But don't look at me like that, like you know that I'll listen to you, because trust me, I don't. This has already been way too ridiculous of a night, so before it gets anymore absurd" he grabbed the bottle that wasn't ice tea and went up some stairs saying "I'm going to bed. Anyway I have more exciting things to do than pick on a 10 year old, example: figure out a way to kill an original"