My favorite three questions had been "what do you want?", "what do you need", and then "what will you do to get them?" I watch her sleep, wondering to myself how I fit into the picture.

What, exactly, is the nature or our relationship? Where might a relationship such as ours lead? As we get closer, the danger I present to her grows; while I can sate the Devourer to keep those around me safe on a short-term basis, can I count on those measures to be enough, each and every day, to safeguard her? Or shall I awaken after sleeping longer than usual, only to discover her lifeless shell beside me, drained of its last spark?

It begins to dawn on me, perhaps I am the last to see that I love her. That comes as no surprise, really, since I love many people around me in one manner or another. Would healing, or trying to lend aid in any form to those around me be possible, if I did not first love? Would I find myself returning to this place, time after time, if I did not already love those within?

And loving her concerns me. In looking back through the years, I cannot think of a single "happily ever after" amongst those that I have loved. More often than not, the people I've loved have ended up lost, banished, or dead. While I want to argue that they would have ended up that way, whether or not I had loved them, I cannot be certain of that... only that I do not see the connection, and I had never meant to harm.

What known danger, then, does my being close to her present? My physiology, for one; if I do not remain vigilant, forget to take necessary precautions, my body will consume her life-force. As well as what I am, there is who I was: I know of any number of people from my past all too willing to use another to hurt me. Too, who I am today, for just as there are those who would hate her for simply being, too, there are those who find cause to hate me for what I am, for what I am imagined to be, for what I am not. And finally, there is what I can do... and the possible repercussions of those doings, and the limits of what I can do as well.

For what it is worth, I am not of her kind. I find it curious that one recurring theme among most of the legendary races is that to fall in love with a human is to court grief and disaster. Is that because a human life is such a frail thing? Or because the mortal condition somehow infects everything it touches, bringing death and decay to all that draw too near?

Simply living with me opens the door to what may be a fatal oversight; we both know and do things that must remain secret to the world. Some secrets may cause embarrassment but little harm other than loss of face. Others, people have killed to protect. While in happier times such an arrangement might have sparked little passing interest other than the best wishes of our respective friends, it seems the friends are a lot more scarce these days. And the locals have been finding just such excuses to kill each other in the last few years.

Once upon a time, death rarely seemed to visit the people I knew. Now, rarely a day goes by in which death or threat of death does not rear its head, even among immortals. Most of the possible roads I see ahead do not seem to end well.

In the past, even in happier times, those I have loved from a distance tend to slip out of my life. Those I have loved too intimately, I have put at unacceptable risk. I can draw the line at friendship, knowing that when hopes are left unfulfilled, and expectations have been unmet, the frustration of inadequacy may well overwhelm the warmth of the friendship I offer.

Somehow, love seems to have gotten complicated. Perhaps death and loss have made it so? Or perhaps I have forgotten to simply love, and to take care of myself, and to trust the people I love to do the same?