(Jasper Pov)
I felt her breathing, saw her small frame splayed over mine, spiky black hair brushing the bottom of my jaw line and parts of my neck.
Her whole body was still except for her steady breathing. She could have been dead, she wasn't blinking, not moving, no blood coursing her veins. She was still except for her constant breath, in then out.
I know because I was focusing on this with exclusion of all else.
Sometimes I looked around, taking in the place she had brought me to. From here was an odd way to view the world, but that was Alice.
She came up to me and smiled dazzlingly before grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the window, down the hall, out the door and far from the yard. It was only when we left the yard did I question her destination.
It was at that point she told me we were going to climb a tree.
Music played in my head, pitch perfect thanks to my immortal memory. I shifted slightly, nuzzling Alice's hair. It always felt odd to me, not soft, but not coarse or prickly.
The sound she made was not a purr or a hum, but a murmured word to quiet for me to pick up.
"Alice." Her attention seemed focused else where, I tried to bring her back, to this time and this place.
"Hmm?" She was focused now, though her body didn't move her breathing sped up unconsciously.
"Why are we up here?"
I looked around indicating by silence the tree we were presently perched in. My back was to the trunk, I was sitting on a large main branch. My left arm draped gently over Alice, in case she lost balance.
We had a perfect view of the moon as it came up and stopped a quarter way through the sky. She stared at it, blinked a few times and turned her head to see me better.
"I wanted a memory."
Then she stood and thanks to her inborn grace she turned on the branch and faced me, back to the moon.
"You have memories, many of them."
"I want memories worth recalling, things worth remembering."
I was quiet. She turned from me and stood on the branch, gazing I was almost certain, at the moon.
"That is a worthy thing Alice."
She laughed and it was not a hollow sound that shook her shoulders.
"I am serious." I whispered the words.
"I know you are."
She smiled and we were quiet. I took in the details of her. I had not had much time to acclimate myself to Alice. She was more graceful than anything I had ever seen, mortal or not.
I looked up from my pondering and saw her staring at me, puzzled.
"What are you thinking Jasper?" Her question was honest curiosity, one that until recently, I would not have answered but rather brushed aside.
"I think you have more things worth remembering than I do and my existence has been longer than yours."
She seemed to drop in front of me, falling easily so she straddled the tree, resting most of her weight on her arms.
"Explain that." It was neither an instruction or a plea.
"Well…"
I paused and then sat up straighter on the tree branch.
"Look now, you have been up in trees often."
She looked at me, it was an odd look, a silencing and careful glance.
"I would sit in them most nights. Humans do not travel all hours of the day, so I spent my evenings in trees."
I let the comment pass, knowing that traveling to her meant looking for me.
"I have barely been in trees, though they seem to be quite excellent for resting in."
"I knew that." Her voice was easy and calm.
We fell quiet again and my mind wandered away from trees back to the small body that was currently nestling back into my arms.
I realized that with all my years of existing there were things she understood that I did not. There were things inherent in her nature like her fondness for skipping, as the human children called it, and her love of climbing, moon watching, racing and skipping stones.
I wondered if she would be the same had she held memories of her former life. I decided that it was not something to dwell on. But in the back of my mind I marveled at the monster she would have been, had one violent action embedded itself into her first memories.
It was a graceful and strained balance she kept, without even knowing it.
In her there was light but, more importantly, the potential for darkness.