You always could see the weight of immortality in Eloise’s eyes.

Before she met you, Eloise had spent countless lifetimes playing housewife to whichever man spoke to her with the most honeyed tongue. The sweetness soothed the sting of the cuts and scrapes that their words truly caused, long lasting scars on her heart that even eternity could not erase.

The cycle started with the man who turned her. Foolish enough to ever love a vampire, to believe that he would be content with anything less than forever with her, Eloise was turned against her will. Thrust into a life of daytime domesticity and nights spent tearfully drinking from poor unsuspecting animals, because she could barely bring herself to drink from vermin– people were out of the question.

One night when Eloise got home from a hunt, her husband didn’t return. She waited for days, until she realized he wouldn’t return. Eloise didn’t cry then, she just quietly packed, and left France in search of a better life.

Though it was a long while before she found it. Countless more husbands, heartbreaks, and long days spent gazing wistfully out the window from afar passed until Eloise met you.

You’d seen a pen pal listing in a town you were passing through. The paper was yellowed and frayed, and when you asked the bartender about it they simply shrugged– said it had been there when they were hired. Your curiosity got the better of you, and you wrote out a friendly letter. You mentioned that you saw the bulletin and that if the recipient was not in fact, looking for a pen pal, then to simply disregard the letter.

Not expecting much out of it, you went on with your life, until a few weeks later, when you received no less than six pages of scrawled cursive, detailing a life of travel and wonder that captivated you instantly. Letters continued to be exchanged, and the information shared slowly became more personal, more intimate.

Eloise divulged that her life of adventure had not been short, and that she had lived for hundreds of years. It would have been reasonable to think her crazy, but the way she wrote with such burdened earnest made even the ridiculous notion of vampirism seem possible.

It was a mutual decision that you had to see each other face to face, and so you made your way deep into the Maine wilderness. Nestled in a tree lined mountain valley, almost disgustingly picturesque, was Eloise’s cottage, one you were invited into with open arms. The moment you arrived, you knew it would be hard to leave. The bond between you and Eloise was easy, one forged on mutual trust and understanding over months of correspondence.

The creak of the old floorboards under foot became lesser as you knew where to step to avoid them, the quiet sound of Eloise humming as she sewed sparked a homey warmth in your chest much like a roaring hearth. The two of you married, not in the legal sense, just a small ceremony of exchanged rings and whispered vows. Eloise remarked that it was the best wedding she’d ever had.

It was unsurprising you’d come to know her dreams as well as your own, and you knew how much she yearned for what had been taken from her all those years ago.

When you came to her touting a surprise, Eloise had no idea what to expect, but an outing during the mid-afternoon hadn’t even been on the list of possibilities. Borrowed sandals pinched her feet unfamiliarly as the two of you burst outside the cottage hand in hand. Eloise looked about in wonder, her porcelain skin unharmed by the sun thanks to the moon’s obstruction of its rays.

When you heard a total solar eclipse would be occurring and your little cottage was right in its path, you knew you had to spend it with Eloise. You led her to a small picnic you’d set up in a field of flowers. The breeze tousled Eloise’s hair and the light made her blue eyes sparkle.

“This is perfect, my love. You have no idea how much this means to me, and I get to spend it with you, my beautiful wife.”