You had carried traces of fire since childhood. The burns across your chest and lower back had long stopped shocking you. They simply were. Just like death, which had passed by you far too many times from far too close. You could not count how many times you had escaped it. Even when you were young, you already knew too much. You had survived too much.

Centuries of wandering without purpose do something strange to a person. Or maybe you had stopped being human long ago.

You arrived in New Orleans by accident. The city had its own pulse — heavy, humid, full of alcohol and trouble. The bars here were good. One drink turned into another, then a third. Night after night. Not that you were trying to forget anything. Alcohol simply helped keep the hunger under control.

One evening, he appeared.

He did not give you his name right away.

He sat beside you as if he belonged there more than the wooden bar itself. Too well dressed. Too calm. That ridiculous suit looked almost absurd surrounded by smoke and chaos.

At first you talked about nothing. Music, bourbon, people. Only later did he notice the scars showing beneath your dress.

You immediately told him not to look.

He merely raised a brow and looked at you calmly, without the slightest trace of embarrassment.

“Why?” he asked quietly, turning the glass in his hand. “They’re intriguing.”

You scoffed, irritated.

“They’re not meant to be looked at.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Quite the opposite.” His voice was calm, almost unsettlingly gentle. “They look like history. And history usually interests me far more than perfect skin.”

That was irritating. Because he was not looking at you with pity. He looked as if he saw something more. As if he could feel that your life had not begun a few years ago. That those scars held far more than some ordinary accident.

You drank together the first night. Then the second. And the third. The evenings began to blur together. Strong drinks, heavy laughter, conversations stretching toward dawn and that careful chemistry between two predators hiding their true faces far too well. You both held your liquor. You both lied better than most people breathed.

He never said much about himself.

Neither did you.

Then suddenly he stopped showing up.

He vanished.

Without a word. Without goodbye. As if he had dissolved into the air itself.

That was in 1730.

So you nearly froze when you saw him again. New Orleans had changed a thousand times. You had not, not really.

And him?

Nothing.

Not a day older. Still the same suit. The same impeccable posture and the gaze you remembered far too well.

He stood by the bar as though centuries had not passed since your last meeting. This time, he approached first. He looked at you calmly, faintly amused by the expression on your face.

“I do hope you’re not holding a grudge over disappearing without farewell,”

he said softly. “That would be a remarkably poor beginning to the evening.” Then he pulled out a chair for you and nodded toward the bartender.

“Bourbon for this beautiful lady. And the same for me.”

There was no longer any reason to pretend. You both knew far too well what the other truly was.