Learning

"Cador, have you ever been in love?"

Cador looked over his shoulder at Sarah, who was looking at him from her spot at the table as he was cooking dinner. He had seen the look in her eyes recently. That sort of distracted, far off stare into the distance as her mind was filled with thoughts of another. It had been years since he had rescued her from the streets and given her a place to live, years since he had taught her about who he was and what kinds of things he had experienced. He had wondered how long it would be before she experienced this.

"I have been," he answered simply, returning to his work. There were many more things he could say than that, but he wished to let her lead the conversation. Ultimately, this would be about her, and the love she was beginning to feel, and what she was going to do about it. If during that process she wanted to know more about his own love affairs, she would ask.

"How many times?"

"That's a difficult question to answer," he explained without looking back at her. "There are varying kinds of love, varying degrees. I can say that I have loved several. But to have been in love with them is perhaps a much smaller number." There was a long pause after that, and Cador knew that Sarah was partially taking in what he had said, but also waiting for a real answer. She had a way of keeping quiet until she heard what she wanted to hear. "In over a thousand years, three times. And nothing compared to the first."

"Only three times?"

"It was very painful to lose the first. Even now, I have never forgotten her, or what it felt like to be with her. I remember our children, and our grandchildren, and how I had to fade out of their lives because of my immortality. It was several hundred years before I could begin to move on. And as I said, even then, nothing compared."

There was a long moment of silence. Now he could tell that she was truly thinking about what he had said. "How did you know?"

Cador picked up a dish and served out dinner, placing it in front of Sarah as he sat across from her. "You can't know for sure until you are already there," he said. "So there is no point in being afraid of taking a wrong step. Just be aware of the steps you are taking, listen to your instincts, and always push forward as long as the path is steady."