The Road is Long ☙
Damon Salvatore hated Mystic Falls. Or so he told himself. Yet in over 150 years he had not been able to resist the pull that drew him back here again and again. Which, he told himself was more to do with having to check up on the Salvatore boarding house every now and then and his only living relatives over the years. (And he wasn’t counting the undead). Nonetheless it was just one of the many lies he repeated to himself over and over as a mantra. He certainly did not stop to enjoy the trickling of sunlight through the thicket of trees along the roads and various forested areas in the town. He did not pause to admire the intense, fervid colours of the foliage in the fall, nature borrowing the guise of fire to herald the approach of winter. Nor did he stop to breathe in the scent of pines and damp earth or look up at the cawing of crows. Those were things for the living. Those were things for humans. Damon, had spent the last century and a half convincing he was neither. The Vampire knew that little details changed overtime, but as far as most places went, Mystic Falls remained in many ways much the same. He expected to see perhaps a storefront here and there with a more modern look, just as he expected to see the church to remain just about the same. He expected to see the same old decoration at the grill, with perhaps an evolution in the seating arrangements over time. What he did not expect however was to see her. To see that face. Here, and now. He froze as he saw her reflection in the bar mirror but made no move to get up. After a few seconds he peered into his glass, considering what to do. He downed the rest of his bourbon and tried to eavesdrop on her, sussing out information. Strange. Her voice sounded different. Had she adopted a new persona? How had she gotten out of the tomb? It took a few more minutes before he decided to get up, walking over to her table and offering a dashing smile. “Hello.”