Eve, of Dean

Eden...

There was something about the way Eden moved. She walked, but an exuberant energy clung to her, giving the sense that she might begin skipping, or break into song, or dance her way along the almost deserted streets. She did none of these things of course, and yet still she caught the attention of those few people she passed, as though they too could sense it. 

It was hard to miss. Eden was hard to miss. 

Eden was short, but that one was far easier to miss. The phrase 'larger than life' might have been coined just for her, as though that curvy but slender form, standing at just 5'1", simply wasn't large enough to house her, and she spilled out in waves that touched and connected with those around her. 

A large black cat trotted along behind her, slipping in and out of the shadows. He moved in that way that cats have. That way that says they're not accompanying you. That it's pure coincidence you share the same destination. That they never met you before in their lives, and they're not meeting you now. Eden humoured him. Pretended she couldn't see him, either. 

The streetlights here weren't great; they flickered, sometimes they went out, leaving the quiet roads draped in shadow and inky darkness. It didn't occur to Eden to be afraid, there was no reason for her to be; she was in no danger. She could see perfectly in the dark; her night-vision pierced the gloom effortlessly and the shadows revealed their secrets for her eyes. 

Eden's eyes changed colour with her mood, with the light, with the moon, and sometimes simply because they could. The shape didn't change, of course - they were large, wide-set, intelligent, framed with long, thick lashes. Tonight they were slate grey, flinty. Her hair was long, falling almost to her waist in a rich brown cascade of glossy but untamed waves, and as she walked the breeze picked at strands of it, as though it trailed playful and insubstantial fingers through her thick strands, lifting them, sending them dancing around her shoulders as she walked. 

It made her smile.  

Her lack of fear bore no relation to the light level; Eden was witch and vampire, both. She was no easy target, no matter that she might, perhaps, appear to be. More fool anything that chose to attempt it. Her first port of call for the night was just ahead. 

Eden slipped silently into one of the warren of narrow alleyways that zigzagged haphazardly between the older buildings. She preferred the older parts of the city to the bits that had been demolished and renovated, time and again, modernised and sanitised and, from Eden's point of view, also stripped of personality, faceless and grey and indistinguishable from suburb to suburb, high street to high street; low rent housing, endless editions of chain stores, the expanse of concrete wasteland. If one knew where to look, and Eden did, obviously, there was still much of the old remaining. It was this that she passed through now, twisting with the turns of the alleyways, cobbles beneath her boots. 

Eden owned an extremely comprehensive wardrobe. Granted most of it lived on the floor, or stuffed into chests and trunks, but she had outfits for every mood. She was currently dressed in artfully ripped tight black jeans worn over artfully ripped black fishnets. The skin that showed through was so pale that the contrast was stark. Her boots were canvas and leather, the kind that you'd find in an army surplus store, and the tops of her socks showed just above them. Her socks were mismatched; one fluorescent pink with smiley faces dotted all over, the other blue and black stripes. Her top half was covered in a tight black shirt that read 'Blood Oranges are not the Only Fruit' and she carried a leather jacket slung over one shoulder. 

She was the sort of beautiful that made heads turn, made people look, and smile. She was lovely without being stand-offish. She had that bounce to her step that made you know she'd be fun. And everyone wanted to get to know her. She was picky, though, without making it obvious that she was being picky. She could pass you by and you'd still be staring after her hoping that she'd change her mind. She did what she wanted and everyone wanted to let her. 

It was impossible not to love her... 

...That was probably the problem.