Sides of a coin

I'd grown accustomed to sleeping beneath or on top of a wagon where ever there was an empty spot rather than in the crowded slave wagon. The physician's wagon isn't very far from the one of the kaiila Mistress and that one isn't far from Master Rook's. I would find a place near one of them to spread my blanket. The past few days I'd begun to pick up my chores again from the other slaves that had been helping but for some reason it took more out of me than usual. Several nights would find me toppling into it sound asleep before my cheek ever touched its softness. Tonight though, that bliss was reluctant to come. With my eyes closed I seemed to hover between wakefulness and the brink of an abyss that I could not slip beyond.

The feel of something warm and soft shifting against the middle of my back didn't startle me but I lay still in that drowsy state trying to determine whether it was friend or foe. When a toe dug into the back of my calf and an elbow gouged at my ribs, I pulled the corner wedge of my blanket over the little body leaving my hand curled over his hip behind me.

A new round of fidgits while he fought his own battle against sleep caused me to whisper,'be still.' I heard his breath sigh and could almost see the warm vapor turn white in the cool air and soon a little purr of snoring filled in the pause in between.

More on this side of waking now I lay there basking in this gift and pondering it as well. The small warrior had left the comforts of his new environment and braved slipping out to be here. Was he merely seeking the open stars, finding peace in the solidity of the ground beneath him and a sparkling blanket of the heavens to wrap him in comfort? If so then there were many wagons to slide beneath or even grassy little knolls that would have sufficed. Perhaps he had thought a little blonde slave girl was lonely and needed company. I rather doubted it but still it could have been his motive. I understood more than I was willing to let myself. He was here to fill a need of his own. Reaching out in a small way that wasn't small in any way at all, not to him. The distance he had traveled could not be measured in horts. If measured in base needs, he had spanned light years.

I could see myself having crept such a distance to be near one that I cared for and now I had the opportunity to see through his eyes. It was only a glimpse but it had been enlightening.

There are not two sides to every coin but three. Heads or tails is divided by the slim edge that both keeps them apart and holds them together. Tonight I lay there in the middle being able to see both faces and it dawned on me that it is only when the coin spins that it becomes whole .. a complete circle.

It all made sense in that moment but I knew I would have trouble trying to explain it all if anyone had asked. Instead I merely leaned back a bit so that my body offered a lee side against the wind for a smaller one. While I stared up at the cresents of the three moons it was another that filled my thoughts and I admitted to myself just how deeply I missed him.