Winter Wonderland

Pain

Naiche 

For the second night in a row, the air smelled of wood smoke. Not that it was an unpleasant smell, but it wasn't a normal smell out here. He had avoided observing the new house for over a week now, despite the nagging curiosity when the noises stopped. There was no one working anymore, but apparently there was someone who already needed a fire, despite all the contraptions they had installed before moving in.

Scowling at himself, he stalked down to the lake, refusing to go investigate. Naiche did not care. He did not want to know who had dared interrupt his world with their wood smoke. He most certainly wasn't walking to the lake to get another view of the house.

And Naiche certainly did not expect to see the woman in the kayak in the middle of the lake. He paused, shifting back into the shadows as he watched the human female float motionless. The boat was one of those plastic concoctions and bright green in a vague recreation of the original shape it should have been. She was wearing a baby blue vest of some sort, a black ball cap and a grey shirt underneath.

She was beautiful, with a reddish brown skin like his and black hair that was braided down her back. Facing toward him, her eyes were closed and her hands rested idly on the paddle that rested across her lap. The kayak bobbed a little in the lake, though the water was mostly still, aside from the ripples of wind that danced between the two of them.

One such breeze brought her scent to him and he closed his eyes as he felt himself immerse in it. He could smell the herbal mint and sage scent of her hair and skin, the remnants of coffee, and the smell of wood smoke. He could smell the fabric of her clothing, down to the scent of whatever soap she used to clean the fabric.

And the salt of tears.

Naiche opened his eyes once more, watching the woman. Then she opened her eyes, wiped at her cheeks and grabbed a handful of what smelled like ash from between her legs.

"I need to let you go now, Remy... I miss you like hell, but I know you're happy, you're finally back with Balaeia." The woman whispered as she scattered the ash on the water.

Naiche frowned and stepped further back into the woods, turning away from the scene that he now understood.

More loss and pain. The world did not change.

Then he halted mid-step.

For centuries, his ability to feel had been numbed, broken from the weight of tears and pain of his people. Though he would never allow a wrong to happen in front of him, he had not felt empathy, not felt his own pain even for a few hundred years.

And now, some woman in a plastic boat, crying and scattered ashes of some lost person, made his heart ache. He felt for her loss, as if it were his own. He sympathized with it and wanted to comfort her in some way or another.

Naiche turned back to the water, only to see the woman now paddling away from him, back toward shore. He watched her go, listening to the splashing sounds of her paddle and the ripple of water as she glided through the water. The woman brought the kayak up onto shore in front of the cabin and climbed out, lithely picking the vessel up and carrying it up the hill to where she stored it under the deck.

Then she paused and glanced back out at the lake. Naiche paused where he was, knowing it was his imagination overreacting at the feeling that she was looking straight at him. He was out of sight, even a vampire could not have seen him. A human would only see the dark shadows of the forest.

Around him, the wind danced, trying to tug him down toward the lake and into view. It played with wisps of his hair and tickled his skin with the scent of fresh mountain air. For a moment, he could smell the woman again, but then the scent was gone. And across the lake water. She turned and walked back up to her cabin.