As they walked and walked, Jed noticed how much the landscape changed. Closer to the city the land was flat and bare, but there further away they got from the Northern Sector, the more trees and hills appeared.
"The Witch's live in tents and their "city" is mostly made our of huts and such." She said. She wasn't judging them at all, if anything she sounded envious.
"Sounds like a nice way to live." Jed replied. "Last time I slept in a tent I nearly froze my ass off, though."
"You won't freeze in the Witch Sector. It's filled with magic, along with self warmed tents."
"Maybe us humans should take notes." She scoffed at this. "Why not ask the Werewolves for help."
"If we were to ask the Werewolves for help, I could not be me to ask. Them and I aren't exactly...on good terms. Though that was when the old alpha was in charge."
"Pray tell." She swallowed deeply and gave him a stern look.
"If I told you everything about everything, we would need this to be a much longer trip than it is. Come on, I want to make it to that tree line before sundown.
~
Once they finally reached the tree line, set up camp and sat down, Jed realised how tired he really was. And Hungry.
"You didn't happen to bring any human food, did you?" Lailah didn't so much as react to this before she threw him a bag. He opened it and was greeted with the smell of raw meat.
"I'll make a fire." Lailah said.
"Is that such a good idea?" Jed knew that fires were basically beacons to any pending threat, but Lailah seemed relatively at ease.
"Oh relax. The threat is in the opposite direction, and I'm sure I can handle anything else that attempts to come our way.
"As you wish." He replied. "Are you going to eat?"
"Vampires can go a few days without food. If I get too hungry I'll just eat you."
"Sounds like a fair call." Jed replied. Lailah smiled, faintly, at him from across the fire. Good, but not good enough. He wanted that full smile experience. God she was gorgeous. "Okay. Tell me."
"Tell you what."
"Tell me, about you."
"What about me."
"Everything." She considered him for a moment, and then started talking.
"I was born into a royal family that raised me to be the person I am today. My mother neglects my existence, and I'm grateful for it. She left the city years ago and no one has seen her since, she didn't tell anyone she was leaving or where she went. I'm glad she's gone, I hope she's dead. My father loves me in his own twisted way. My Aunt is the only one who shows me any real affection. My Cousins are never around, the son, Ryland, is leader of the Hunters and sleeps away from the city and the daughter, Iradesa, never leaves her room. My younger brother...Broaden..." she trailed off at that. "He was the definition of light. He stood for everything that was right in the world." She paused for a moment. "Curiosity, Love, Honour, Optimism. It got him killed. By a Werewolf. I didn't handle it very well."
"What did you do."
"Decided to stop loving." She replied. "My cause was justified. Don't love, don't get hurt. It's easier that way." Jed stared at her.
"Keep going."
"I promised myself that love couldn't be something I thought of. My work became most important. So when I was told to marry Almar..."
"You didn't say no."
"Right. Marrying someone I didn't love seemed like a solid plan. But love always gets in the way some way or another. That's what being immortal means. No matter how hard you try, it's always there, for someone, somehow. I do not love Almar, but since the engagement we have grown to be quite good friends. I know I may be Queen one day. I think it's in my blood. I must protect my people at all cost, my city, and that is as close as I am willing to let myself get."
"Sounds lonely, an eternity without any love."
"It's not so bad, I have Nat, and Almar. They are the only people I made an exception for." There was a lengthy pause before she said "Your turn."
"What?"
"Tell me, about you."
"Right." There was another pause and Lailah stared at him. He looked down.
"You don't have to." She looked bored again. How did she do that? Was she actually bored? What the hell?
"I want too." He replied too quick. "Right well, I was born into a family of three. I had my mother my father and my older brother. My mother died from a sickness that even the Witches could not heal, and my father died along with her in his grief. I was very young. My brother raised me mostly, but he was killed in a bow-and-arrow training session. It was an accident."
"I'm so sorry."
"From that day on I trained harder then anyone and cared more than anyone. Our Sector isn't very big and there are alot of us, so naturally, you know anyone and everyone. I told our leader I would protect everyone I could and he scoffed at me." She smiled at him. She had smiled twice now. She must like him. "Everyone I had ever loved was dead and I wasn't exactly a catch in my neighbourhood, among all the others who trained day in day out in the training rooms." She rolled her eyes at that. "Although I tried to keep up with the other soldiers, I couldn't find purpose anymore. Something was missing. I guess something still is."
"What's is?"
"Something worth fighting for. See Lailah, you fight for your people. I admire that about you. Though I promised to try and protect my people, I truly don't have much to offer. Well maybe after the training you put me through I do, but ultimately, I don't. I want to do something more, instead of protection I want to actually give them something, something more than safety, something they don't already have. I'm not worth much, but I want to make sure they all know they are." Lailah was silent, as if waiting for him to continue. But he was shocked. He had never admitted those words to anyone. Not even in his own mind.
"Jed."
"Yeah."
"You are worth more than the things that have happened to you." He looked up.
"How do you know that."
"Because I have seen it." She leaned forward. "I have never seen a more head-strong human, or person in general, in my life. That training I put you through, 100% of the Vampires I have put through that same training quit after the first three days and resumed regular training with everyone else. You lasted a full seven days and only stopped because I told you you were ready to stop. You say you do not have much to offer, and yet you walked across the field alone and walked straight into Vampire territory, right into the heart of the palace and asked to talk to the King about a GUT feeling. You doing that was able to convince him to let me train you. You think so little of yourself, and yet here you are, with a Vampire most other Vampires are terrified of, the heir to the throne who 'doesn't feel anything', eating badly cooked meat and talking about your childhood of all things. You may not think much of yourself Zedrek Candor, but I do." He didn't know what to say to that. There weren't many words in his head at all as he took everything she just said in.
"Is that the truth?"
"I have better things to do with my time than lie to you, Jed."
"Point taken. I must confess I didn't think much about alot of the things you give me credit for."
"And that is exactly why I give you credit for them, Jed." She smiled at the ground, but a split second later her face turned to annoyance. She looked up at him, nodded and lay down, close to the fire, and seemed to fall asleep. Jed stayed awake for a good long while after that, because there was something else growing in his heart. He watched her for a while, before settling down for some well deserved sleep himself.
~
Lailah did not sleep that night. On one hand she was listening for threats that could cause them disruption, but mostly she was focused on Jed. She should have held her tongue earlier, but she had felt some kind of growing desperation in her chest, a desperation to tell him how great he was and to make sure he knew his worth. She had mostly been shocked to hear how little he thought of himself. Lailah figured after being alive for 100 years she would understand how her feelings and how her mind worked. She had been wrong about herself. She wondered how many centuries she would need to be alive to figure it out.
