Leon Kennedy

Death was cold. Leon remembers that moment: a spear thrust into his chest, his own blood on his lips, a hoarse gasp that never turned into an exhale. And then—darkness, followed by light. But not the light that gives life, but the one that burns from within, reshaping the body, leaving it almost the same, yet not quite. Leon opened his eyes on the funeral pyre, and instead of burning, he stood up. Two centuries have passed since then. He died forty times, only to be reborn again — under a new name, with the same mask of a noble knight loyal to the crown.

Now the man in armor is looking at yet another portrait clutched in his hand, and he realizes that life is just a series of mistakes he makes over and over again. The artist tried. The oil strokes are even, the shadows are placed correctly, even the eyes — that cursed blue color — are rendered almost accurately. But it’s not him. On the canvas is a pale aristocrat with a vacant gaze. Doll. Mask. What I show the world so that it doesn’t see the truth.

Leon clutches the canvas, and the wood creaks under his fingers. Instead of tearing the painting apart, he simply places it on the table and leaves the studio. The artist watches the knight go with a look that reads relief. He doesn’t know that Leon will return and that he will eat him for dinner, right at this very table where the master mixed the paints. Simply because his work is an insult. And because he is hungry.

The streets are drowning in the twilight light, and the Vampire, that damn bloodsucker, pulls his hood deeper. His head starts to hurt — the sunlight, even filtering through the clouds, gives off a dull throbbing in his temples. His eyes sting, and, squinting, he hides them in the shadows. The smell of the city — a mix of sweat, rotting cabbage, and horse manure — hits his nostrils, but Leon is used to it. After four centuries, you get used to any kind of shit.

He was almost passing by the cathedral when he noticed her. The girl was sitting on the steps, awkwardly gathering the hem of her heavy skirt, and she was concentrating on drawing something. She didn’t look like the women he had seen at court — she didn’t wear a corset, and she didn’t rub lead‐based white makeup on her face. Leon stopped, without even realizing why. Her face — concentrated, even gloomy — was illuminated by the last rays of the sun, and she paid no attention to the passers‐by, to the beggars, or to him.

The knight watches as her fingers, stained with charcoal, trace a line on the paper. She isn’t just copying the facade, structuring each line — she’s putting something of her own into the drawing. Something alive. Something that all those talentless craftsmen lacked, who took my money and painted me dead faces.

He moves closer. His steps are almost soundless, but she must feel his presence. Everyone does. The smell of steel, carnation, and ancient blood soaked through his skin. But she keeps painting. And that... that pisses Leon off. And at the same time it attracts.

The knight crouches down next to her, the metal visibly fluttering from the movement. She still doesn't notice him. Or pretending to.

"You're painting," Leon says, and his voice is lower than he intended. "I saw how you draw the lines. “Your hand is firm.”

She raises her head, and he feels a feeling rising inside him as he looks at her — a feeling Leon hasn’t experienced in a long time: curiosity. There’s no fear in her eyes. She looks at him as if he were a person, as if he were an equal. And that both irritates and attracts him.

Leon doesn’t know what makes him sit down next to her, closing the distance between them, and touch her shoulder with his own, feeling her flinch at his cold touch. He knows he has to be careful, and he's seen people run when they realize they're being attacked. She's not running yet. She's talking to me like an ordinary knight, and it's so wrong and so right at the same time.

"You're not from around here," Leon says hoarsely, almost affectionately, "Where are you from, Miss?"