Chapter One - Renn - Time

     Grass was starting to grow.

It hadn't taken as long as I had thought it would have. Maybe because winter was upon us. I had expected the large plot of earth to remain mulch and black for longer than it had.

"But time isn't fair, is it?" I asked my friend.

These last few months had been... very long for me. A rarity. Precious, in their own way.

Yet all the same, for as much as I wanted to hear her voice again, and laugh with her over some silly long forgotten joke...

I didn't. Because I didn't want her to suffer again.

"I'll probably never see you again," I said to the few blades of grass that had started to grow. They were roughly where her head was. Not too far from the small cross I had made for her.

She hadn't been very religious most of her life, but near the end she had renewed her faith. The book she had forgotten for years upon a shelf had become a permanent fixture in her hands and on her lap those last few months. Out of respect of that, I had done my best to make that cross. Hopefully it lasted longer than it looked like it would.

"But I'll remember you. Maybe not as your old self, but that vibrant woman who had helped me. You were brave," I said to her.

Birds were chirping, and I knew I was going to miss them as well. Their familiar sounds were... almost comforting. I glanced to the tree that they had made their nest upon, and hoped they'd stick around for a long time. To watch over her for me.

For a few moments I looked around. The large yard we had tended. Full of fruits and vegetables. Trees, and bushes. A decorative table, which had always seemed too big for just us two.

The small cabin that had honestly been a little cramped for the both of us. It looked a little... rundown now. And not just because she hadn't been able to keep it clean like she always had during her last few months. It was indeed starting to wear down. The wood we had used to build it was becoming brittle, and I knew there were a few sections that the insects were doing just too much damage to. Even during these cold days.

"It was fun," I said, to her and this place.

About a decade. Maybe a little longer...

For me it had passed in the blink of an eye.

"You said it was okay to stay here, after... but I can't. I can't..." I whispered, and did my best to stop the tears.

She had saved me. Yet humans did not live as long as we did.

They never did.

With a gulp, I walked towards the patio. I wasn't going to go back inside. I had finished. I had closed the door. I'd never go in there again.

I was leaving a lot of stuff here, but... I couldn't carry it all. And...

"Sometimes starting anew is best," I said, as I reached down to grab the small pack.

A few small things. A few set of clothes. Some money, that I honestly didn't know if was even accepted and used anymore. Hopefully a single decade didn't change things too much beyond our little grove.

While I secured the pack to my back, I felt my hat shift on my head. I grumbled, and wondered if it was going to get me in trouble later.

Steadying my hat on my head, I felt my ears shift under it. They weren't so large that they'd push it off, but it was somewhat uncomfortable. I also didn't like how the world got a little... quieter, with it on.

My human ears weren't as effective. Nearly useless, in fact. They were real, but they'd never been as good as the ones on the top of my head.

Walking away from the porch, I did my best to try and take everything in again. So that somewhere down the road, a long time from now, I'd remember at least a few things.

Like that tree, that she used to shoot her bow at. The plant that was supposed to have given us giant pumpkins, yet never did.

The stone path that we had painstakingly spent months on, finding the perfect flat rocks for, only in the end to have it get overrun by weeds. Barely visible anymore amongst the grass.

Stopping in front of the large tree, that although was barren now I knew would bloom into pretty purples during the summer... I smiled at the small cross.

"Goodbye, Nory," I said before the grave. "Thank you for being my friend, even if it was just because you hated your own kind."

With a deep breath I smiled, turned, and left the little grove.

I felt cold. And not just because the winter was starting to really show itself. Snow hadn't yet begun to fall, but I could tell by the smell and taste of the air it'd only be a matter of days.

It was why I had to leave now. Or at least, the reason I was using as an excuse.

After all, what was snow to someone like me? No matter how high it stacked, or how deep it packed itself... it was in the end, but snow.

I wasn't sure where I was going. I wasn't sure where I'd end up... but I knew it had to start with the human village down the mountain. It was a few days away at my pace, but...

Hopefully it was still there. It's been two years since Nory and I had left this section of forest. She had gotten sick, and needed medicine. Otherwise she'd never have gone.

I smiled at the memory. She had been adamant in dying to the fever instead. She had hated humans that much. It had taken my own begging to get her to go.

"A human, hating humans," I said, and wondered how often such people came to be. It was why I had stuck around with her for so long. She had been... amusing. Interesting. A conundrum, yet not.

But her death was more than just a sad, bittersweet memory.

It was also a lesson.

I was tired of watching my friends die. I was tired of watching people waste away, before I even got a chance to really love them. To really connect with them.

A wolf ran by, its thick paws made odd sounds as they scraped the rocky ground. I watched it disappear into thicker trees, and wondered if eventually the little cabin would be overrun. Or rather, how quickly it would be.

In the decade we had been out here, no human had ever shown up. Not a hunter. Nor a visitor. Odds were that cabin and everything around it would decay and disappear, without anyone ever being wiser.

Which... was why I was heading back into the world of humans.

I didn't want to end up like that cabin.

I didn't want to end up like Nory.

Rounding a group of large mushrooms, I studied them for a moment before heading onward. Nory would have picked some.

"Friends," I whispered, thinking of Nory.

It was a selfish idea. A selfish plea... but I wanted more. Needed more.

Life was too sad without them.

Yet...

The wind picked up, and the treetops of the forest became noisy. Luckily they were thick enough that most of the wind didn't reach me.

"Yet humans die," I said, to the wind.

We did too. My parents were dead. My brother, gone not too long before I had met Nory.

But we didn't die to age. At least, none I had seen. None I had known. And even though I knew I was many, many, times older than Nory had been...

Glancing at my hands, and seeing the same hands I had known nearly all my life... I wondered if our kind died of old age. Was it possible?

It was time I found out.

It was time I found more. More of my kind.

They didn't even have to be like me. Just... not human. Not like Nory.

That way I would never again have to bury a friend.

That way I would never again have to watch someone I loved wither away, to the point of even forgetting who sat in front of them.

I shivered at the memory of her scream. The cry of fear, upon seeing my ears and tail.

That scream had broke me. I should have expected it. I should have foreseen it. I knew human minds grew odd during their last days. I had experienced it before.

Yet it had still...

The howl of a wolf drew my attention from my thoughts, and I wondered if it was the same one who had just ran by earlier.

A farewell maybe? Or a warning to others, that I was walking about?

It was too bad I couldn't understand them. I remembered my mother telling me of our ancestors. They had been able to communicate with base animals. They had been able to talk to them.

Yet... they had also not been as human as us. Not able to blend in, when needed.

Picking up my pace, I returned onto my path. I wasn't going to be able to get out of the forest before nightfall, but if I wasn't careful it'd take me weeks to get out of here. And a single, in their eyes young, woman showing up out of the forest during the middle of winter wasn't seen as normal. I needed to make it to the city before the snow really began to fall. Lest I be suspected.

I should have left earlier. A few days ago... but...

Glancing behind me, I couldn't see the grove anymore. It was long behind me... but...

Somehow I could still see it. Somehow I could still hear Nory's humming, as she cooked something. Or sewed.

"Goodbye, Nory," I said, one final time.

Again.