Momentarily, after Hope's laughter died out through the air, the library fell into a peaceful, serene mood. The only sounds carried by the wind were the shuffle of books and the breathing of those sitting around the room.
When Hope wiped away the last tear from the corner of her eyes, she casually commented, "Ah… it's been quite some time since I laughed like that."
John forced a smile out of his lips. "I'm happy my incredible ability to give nicknames can get that reaction."
"Yeah, sure." Hope said, not fully capable of holding back a soft chuckle.
With the passing of time, Hope's expression slowly reverted back to what it was. Her eyelids weren't close due to her laughter nor her lips curled up in a smile. Her face was casual, seemingly neutral, having only a tiny difference from a few moments ago – it carried a genuine shadow of happiness.
The difference was readily noticed by the boy, who cast his sight down in an unconscious form to express his relief. As a result of his actions, John glanced over the book laying before him.
Picking it up, John brought the item closer to him. "I guess we ended up on this part of our tour, right?" He said, more commenting than asking.
"I guess so," Hope replied. "since we've covered every species' known origin."
"And some not initially included." John commented, lifting up his eyes to glance at the girl's figure. "Hybrids… To be honest, their existence is not so surprising. Kinda expected that when I heard there are more than one supernatural species out there."
Hope raised her eyebrows in mild curiosity. "Really?"
The boy responded by nodding in affirmation. "The only surprising part is that there is one sitting right before me. And not only a hybrid, but a- wait, that's the wrong article. But, the Tribrid." John accented the last two words in an obvious exaggerated manner, like announcing something mighty and grand. An aspect further enhanced by his arm gestures.
Seeing the boy's antics, a smile tucked Hope's lips. "You saying it like that makes me embarrassed." She retreated a little into the chair despite no presence around them, acting embarrassed by his words.
"Hehe." Noticing the girl following his mannerisms brought a genuine smile to the boy. "How is it? Inheriting the bloodline from all three main species." He curiously asked, leaning forward over the wood furniture.
The question led Hope to purse her lips in contemplation. Spending a few moments on the thought to prepare an answer.
"There are good and bad things," She muttered, slowly. "as everything else in life. One of the bad things you already heard about."
Her insinuation instinctively led the young man to record what happened some time ago. "The girls calling you an 'abomination'?" John asked.
"Yes."
"Care to explain why they called you that exactly?" John asked. "'Cause the only reason I can think of is their jealousy of you." He feigned his ignorance over the subject.
And though Hope listened clearly to the question, the words stuck to her mind were the last muttered by the boy.
"Jealousy? And why is that?" At the same time Hope raised her eyebrows in curiosity, a part of her made her lips instinctively take the form of a smirk.
Shit. Such blatant and obvious changes enlightened the young man to his actions. There isn't much I can do now. "Don't try to act as if you don't know. You know why I said that." John replied in a rush.
Hope, however, was fine, slowly enjoying this moment. "Hm… I think I don't." She said, rubbing her chin in 'deep' thought.
Look at the cheekiness of this girl. John thought, his lips opened in a smile. "It's because you are way more beautiful than those girls."
The smile of the girl just broadened in result of the boy's words. "My, thank you for the compliment."
"You are welcome." John held the urge to roll his eyes at her actions, though his smile did not fade away.
Satisfied by the young man's words, Hope continued over the topic they briefly evaded. "It all comes down to Magic and Nature, and how witches relate to both."
"It seems like an interesting story."
"In its own way." Hope replied. "As I said, most witches – the traditional ones – see themselves as servants of Nature. Acting on its behalf to bring balance to the world. This idea is reinforced when we have examples of Nature itself attempting to achieve balance when a new variable is added into the world – the vampires." There was a pause for Hope to catch her breath. "For example, my dad and uncles weren't supposed to have certain weaknesses. Wood, sunlight, a person's invitation to enter the owner's house, none of that was supposed to exist."
John narrowed his eyes in mild curiosity. "Then how did these advantages come to fruition?"
In response, Hope picked up the book in front of the boy, leafing through the pages. "I don't think this one here says it…" She stopped her movements. "No, it's here." She said, handing back the book now open on a specific page.
Taking the book, John gave it a quick read. "The Immortality Spell?"
"The origin of all Immortal Beings." Hope commented. "A spell created, obviously, to grant immortality. It was created over two thousand years ago in ancient Greece by a certain group of witches."
Even if he kept his eyes resting on the book, John listened attentively to the girl's words. "Yeah, I read about it. I just- oh…"
"It seems you realized something." Hope stated.
"Just an idea." John said. "Something obvious, actually. Would it because the Immortality Spell to change your family was, as it says here, incomplete?"
"Then you are correct." Hope nodded. "My grandmother only had an incomplete version of the spell. So, to cast it, she had to change a few things. Something Nature made use of."
John raised his eyes to glance at Hope. "Nature made use of loopholes present in the spell."
"Yes… loopholes." Hope muttered, the word slowly leaving her mouth. "There is even a poem about that." She casually remembered, pushing away certain thoughts of her mind.
"Are you going to recite a poem to me?" John asked with an obvious expectation building up on his expression.
Unfortunately to him, the answer wasn't what he expected.
"No." Hope replied through a smile.
The young man's face deflated over the answer. "You don't even let a man dream, don't you?"
A soft laugh escaped under Hope's breath. "Stop exaggerating." She said, shaking her head slightly while throwing up her eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying, Nature made use of the imperfections on the spell my grandmother attempted to correct." Hope explained, observing the boy leafing through the pages of the book.
"I see." John whispered in reply, having straightened himself. Leafing to the subsequent page, his eyes silently read the black letters present from top to bottom in the yellowish-white paper. "That's something really interesting. Every specific vampiric weakness can be traced to blood and the White Oak Tree used by your grandmother." By the end of the paper, his brows instinctively raised curiosity. "Even if apparently there are still doubts of why humans, mortals in general, can deny the entrance of vampires."
"Ah, that." Hope muttered, aware of what the young man meant. "Yes, that's something still discussed. But most people studying it or simply aware of the supernatural just for granted it is because doors, frames, or houses in general are made of wood. And since nature chose wood as an element to counter vampires, the house just naturally has an aspect to deny the entrance of vampires without the owner's permission."
John inclined his head in comprehension. "It makes a lot of sense. But I would love to see if it's really because of the wood or something else."
"I think you will have to wait until someone tries that possibility." Hope nonchalantly commented on the idea, not having much interest over the prospect.
However, differently from her, the young man mulled over the idea silently. His eyes stared into the nothingness as the gears of his mind worked.
"Would you have a paper with you?" John abruptly asked, but he immediately shook his head. "Of course not, you are not carrying anything with you."
"That obvious, hm?" Hope remarked. "Why do you want it?" She asked.
"Just to remind myself of trying something out later." John answered, getting up from the chair. "Just a moment." He said to her through the process of getting up, not waiting for a reply before heading away from the table.
Still sat down on the chair, Hope turned around on it, sitting horizontally with her legs to the side as she observed the young man walk in the direction of the only other person present in the room.
With a certain attention and focus from her, Hope observed as John called out Dorian's attention, saying a few words to the librarian before the man responsible for the library nodded.
Approaching a desk located in a corner of the room, near the entrance to another wing of the building, Dorian bent over a little to open a drawer. After opening it, he retrieved from it a small pile of papers – no more than five sheets – before he gave the desk's surface a quick glance, easily finding a blue ballpoint pen which he quickly grabbed.
With items at hand, Dorian calmly delivered them to the young man's hands, to which John genuinely thanked the man's actions before stepping away from the man, walking back to where he was sitting a few moments ago.
"Thanks for waiting." John said, sitting down whilst laying the white papers over the wooden surface.
Despite listening to the words muttered by the young man, Hope paid more attention to his actions. "You are writing down that idea?" She asked, seeing him take hold of the pen with his right hand, pressing its bottom before approaching the pen's tip to the white sheets.
"I sure am." John said, writing down the idea. "It's just a note to remind myself later. Whenever possible, I would like to try the idea."
Listening to it, even if not expressing herself much, Hope silently understood the young man seemingly was someone really curious.
"I see-" When Hope was half-way through her casual reply to John's words, she noticed a detail about his writing. It wasn't his beautiful calligraphy or anything related, but what he was writing. "That's not English."
"No, it's not." John nonchalantly confirmed her words.
"In what language are you writing?" Hope asked.
"Portuguese." John replied. "Brazilian Portuguese, to be more exact."
"Are you Brazilian?" Hope asked the obvious question.
"American father, Brazilian Mother." Or that's what I believed until dear mom and dad just revealed to me through mental letters they are actually Outer beings. "Spent most of my life in Brazil, just coming to the U.S. during vacations. Just enough to get fluent in the language."
"I see…" Hope murmured, watching the young man retracting the pen from the paper. "Never been to Brazil. Actually, I've never been anywhere beyond New Orleans, Virginia and places in-between."
Lifting his face to her, John smiled when staring at her deep blue eyes. "I would love to brag about my country's good things and bad things sometime." He said, pressing the pen's bottom button. "However, now we have another thing to discuss, since it seems we've drifted away from our previous topic – which is actually you."
"Yeah… I think we went very far away from there." Hope muttered, realizing how much they drifted from the main topic.
John nodded. "My fault. Got too curious."
"You sure did." Hope said, far from being bothered by the boy's interest in the supernatural. "I guess we were talking about why those girls hated me, right?"
"And you said it's because how witches see themselves as servants of Nature."
"Right, that's where we stopped." Hope remarked, looking upwards in short reminiscence. "Then I won't have much else to explain to you. I told you how Nature tries to correct everything that isn't supposed to 'exist' by its laws. Laws, obviously, we have to comprehend by ourselves using the times Nature has intervened in the world as examples. The existence of vampires defy a law we are aware Nature always responds to – No Immortality is permitted. That's why most witches view them as abominations. 'Cause they defy a law of Nature."
"That's why they don't like you? Because they are witches and you are… ⅓ vampire?" John asked. Once again, he asked one question he knew the answer to. I'll have to get used to this. He thought.
Slowly, with her eyes closed and lips pressed against each other, Hope shook her head in denial. "No." She opened her eyes, gaze lowered. "It's more than that."
John, listening to this, tilted his head to the side in a sign of confusion and curiosity.
He is cute. Hope thought, letting out a long emotional snort. "For centuries, there was one law every person aware of the supernatural thought to be unbreakable. No matter the ways, it couldn't be broken – No creature can be more than one thing. That is-"
"No Hybrids were permitted by Nature." John said.
"Correct." Hope replied. "That is, until my dad took a human's life for the first time and awakened his werewolf side."
"Right… That happened." John said, accenting his words. It would be a good gossip if it didn't end up so tragic.
"Yeah…" Hope trailed her eyes around, knowing well what the boy meant. "And in her attempt to fix her mistakes or simply hide what she felt ashamed for – which I have no fucking idea what of the two was the main reason – she sealed my father's werewolf side." She paused to take some air in. "Obviously, my dad broke his curse, and when he did it," She returned the conversation's topic. "he apparently felt lonely, so he decided to create more hybrids. And due to the process needed for their creation, their image of abomination was taken up a notch."
"The Petrova Bloodline?" John said, opening up the book once again. "I didn't see any of it after the mention of its use in breaking your father's curse."
"Ah, long story. I will explain to you later." Hope said. "Anyway… from these two examples, you can understand why hybrids are hated, right?"
"I can."
Hope permitted a long sigh to escape her nostrils, the sharp sound traveling far across the library while her gaze lowered. "Another title granted to my father is… 'Culmination of Sins'. Words chosen to exemplify not only the wrong acts my father carried out, but also how his existence was against every law of Nature…" She paused once again, but this time, it seemed to be for more than a normal catch up of breath.
Under the wooden surface of the table, over her thighs, Hope held her hands together firmly; her shoulders quivered slightly under her posture and actions.
Watchful, with his golden eyes lingering over Hope's figure all the time, John calmly waited for what the girl wished to communicate. He didn't rush or pressure her – just calmly observed the young woman born with power to muster enough strength to say what she wanted.
Hope parted her lips. "And then you have me." She said, slowly. "My father was the greatest killer of history, a figure hated by all. My mother was a hybrid, just like him. My family… sigh, what can I say about them? For a thousand years, people have considered my family a plague on this planet. And, in the end of all of this, there is me." A smile forced itself out of Hope's lips, her way to suppress the resurfacing tears accumulating on her eyes.
"And there is you…" John murmured, softly. "And what is there to you?"
A laugh broke through Hope's lips, not being able to contain it. "And what is there to me? Really?"
"Really." The young man's tone was calm, patient and truthful. His words meant what they meant, nothing behind that. "And what is there to you?"
"…" Silence permeated between the two teenagers, with Hope diving under a quiet thought.
Whatsoever, John calmly waited for her reply, having his attention momentarily consumed by the sight of her right cheek retreating when Hope bit her inner mouth.
And as shortly it lasted, it quickly ceased when a small indication of Hope adjusting her posture was noticed by the boy.
"I…" Hope started off, raising her eyes to almost the same level as the young man's. "am the product of everything the witches and Nature are against. Not only am I the daughter of a vampire, which should be impossible, but I'm also the combination of all three races. By everyone's eyes, I'm the abomination told in fairy tales and stories."
By the moment Hope's lips closed, John opened his.
"You see yourself like that?" He asked promptly, at the exact moment Hope's voice scattered into the wind.
"I don't see myself like that. The world does – everyone does."
"Wrong." John shook his head. "As far as I am concerned, you can discount at least 1 person from that group of people who dislike you."
Under those words, Hope chuckled slowly. "Is that so?"
"Yes." John nodded in affirmation. "I couldn't care less about your background, what your family did, what you are or what Nature thinks of it. As far as I see, you are a normal girl with a lack of friends. So, consider yourself lucky." Pushing his chair far from the desk, John got himself standing up, stepping to the side of the table. "Come on."
Hope tilted her head to the side. "What are you doing?"
"Just stand up, please." John replied.
Listening to him, Hope also rose up to her feet. In a slower rhythm, but doing the action nonetheless.
And when she stepped up to stand in front of the young man, she narrowed her eyes slightly when seeing him opening his arms.
"Really?"
"Your choice." John replied simply.
Hope silently stared at the boy, his open arms calmly waiting for her to approach.
This is ridiculous. She muttered inwardly. But outside her mind, Hope's steps acted controversial to her thoughts. With a couple steps, the distance between her and John closed.
She stood before him, John's arms still hanging in the air as there was a tiny space still separating them. And until Hope took the first step, he would calmly wait for her.
That was something the young woman noticed when looking up at the boy, observing the almost stupid smile he mustered after he noticed her eyes.
Lowering her gaze, Hope's eyes rested over the young man's chest. Unaware of her part, a similar smile to the boy bloomed on her lips. Really… stupid. With those words, she fell forward. Hope felt her head hit softly the fabric covering the boy's torso, the warmth coming from him calmly trespassing the cloth.
Though her eyes were darkened by her eyelids and the clothes pressed against them, Hope could visualize the arms slowly wrapping around her figure, embracing her in a neat comfort.
Hope snuggled in the boy's embrace, a sharp sigh escaping her lips was muffled by the cloth. "Mdisaointed."
John held down the laugh threatening to escape his lips. "Why?" He asked.
Freeing her mouth, Hope muttered, "I thought those last words would work…"
"Ha." He couldn't resist now. "Sorry to disappoint you then."
"You are forgiven." Hope said, taking a deep breath and returning to enjoy the hug to its fullest.
In silence and completely unperturbed, time passed. No sound or sight dared to make its presence known to the two youngsters. And for this reason, the moment of the two embracing each other in a friendly hug was seared into reality.
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