Snow White

when we leave this world behind
the magic of the night
leads the naked and the blind
to the other side
of a dreamer's golden mind
and forevers burn so bright
turn around and you will find
another shinin' light
down on senseless avenue
all your fantasies come true
welcome home, my chosen few
when your hot gets a little cold
when your young gets a little old
lost souls will be found again
- subway angel's caravan

I can't remember who won the original bet as to how long I would last among the tribe. I don't think anyone thought it would be this long. Later in my life I would look back on all the things that had happened up through this first move and much of it will not be so important, some of it will be etched there for my lifetime. I didn't get to see Tooria and strut past it arrogantly but somewhere in my heart I knew they knew we had passed their gates and trembled. They had good reason to. It wasn't exactly a land of bosk and honey but it sure felt that way inside.

I wandered back among the first wagons amid dustings of snowflakes, cold, weary, with a few scratches and a new set of stripes on my back. It was made clear by Master Duran that even though my efforts to help had been beneficial, there was consequence for being so outspoken. I'd accepted them as graciously as I could but he had spared no mercy in the offering. The shawl I was allowed to keep as well as an invitation to return when not needed elsewhere.

I returned with more. There were two dung sacks apiece that had been collected from among all of the outer wagons that was sent to the Ubar and the kaiila Mistress for the repairs and for allowing me to work among the outer wagons. Another girl ... Rita, helped me drag them through the mire. She said I was welcome to visit with her as long as I didn't plan on being such a bossy bitch next time. I had to laugh when I told her I would only bark orders if the sky begins pouring dirt on our heads and then trying to wash it off with a river. She said that was fair enough.

I returned too with news of a couple, Gideon and Ula, that had interest in Me Too. They had lost a child during a move about 6 envars ago and had empty spots in two big hearts that was big enough for a precocious young warrior.They didn't need a slave though not even a free one. I would simply offer the knowledge to Master Rook and Mistress Cana without interfering or trying to do it my way. Wondering what would they do with me worried the inner part of my lip between my teeth a little.

While we walked with the sacks nipping at our heels, I told the girl a story that didn't make any sense to her but it struck home a lot of things for me. It was about two Ubars far away and long ago. They had called truce to an ancient war between their tribes. When one gave the other a gift of 20 mounts, the other had offered his own to ride back. It was what the second had said that kept running through my head ... The walk home is part of the gift.

I was humming this silly song as I neared the inner circle .. Hi ho .. hi ho ...

Virga

I cant stop the rain from falling
Do what you must do
I can only hope to share
The pain I gave to you
We can climb to another world
If we never look down
We can join in the avalanche
And be thrown to the ground


The outer wagons had taken more of the brunt of the storm than those of the inner circles. Thankfully, there had not been a lot of major damages but there was more than enough accumulative minor damages. Without a wealth of stockpiles, these people lived within what they possessed so any loss was still a major one to them. Falon had understood this when she sent the furs before the move. She had known they would be needed at some point. I kept expecting her to come check on everyone and the fact she hadn't yet tugged at something. I missed her and looked up to find a particular cluster of little stars in the sky, glad I couldn't see anything.

I was hanging off the frame of a wagon, holding up pegs for a Master to nail a rib back into place when the rains came. That first big droplet hit with a big splash that felt like a magnolia pod grenade exploding on top my head. The deluge didn't seem to phase anyone here, just tucking their heads in defiance of it and continuing to work. Between the stinging pelts of hard rain, a Man's low baritone voice began to sing. It was a song of pain and loneliness that somehow didn't make you feel sad but gave you hope or maybe make you want to make everything just a little better.

Those that had been separated from their families had begun filtering through the lines, in fragile calls that sounded as half afraid of not finding them as they were half afraid they would. One tiny little boy was sitting alone in the dust, slapping both hands at it as if it were water to splash. Now and then he would look up, searching with a heartbreaking lost look and as the little crater filled with water he found a glee in the resulting mud pies. When the Master had no more need of me, I bounded off the wagon to scoop the boy up onto my hip. Pat, pat, pat, the little hands made teeny hand prints of mud on my shoulder as if I were a canvas meant just for his art.

It seemed as if it had been three forever's since I'd seen anyone of the first wagons. It wasn't that I didn't think of them. It was quite the opposite, they filled every thought. I could feel Fonce in a way I still could not explain. He surged through my veins, scalding his way through every step of my life. He was my joy and my sorrow and everything in between. I was beginning to trust that he was there, he was alright, he was busy living, surviving, taking care of others. I didn't have to see him to know it, I could feel him. I think that it would not matter now if I were right there at his boots or half a universe away.

Cana was made of stronger stuff than most. It wasn't as if I felt she was unbreakable but I knew she would find a way to make everything around her ... alright. If there was ever a model of womanhood, she was the one person I most wanted to emulate. Tarra was like Fonce in a way, I could still feel her, feel the smile beneath the sadness and sorrows. I don't know if it makes any sense but it is like rubbing your toes together under layers of quilts, it's already warm under there but it just adds a little more. The girls .. well the other girls I knew had hearts to serve and they would give their last breath to. Thinking of them put this little smile on my face.

When I looked back down into that little face I studied it for a long time. I tried to see the face of the Manchild written in his features and I couldn't. Feeling the softness of a shawl cover my shoulders, I could offer an appreciative smile to whoever it was that gave it then drew it around the boy, snuggly. It wasn't long before the child's mother came running toward me to relieve the little package from my arms. She held him close, dotting his face all over with kisses and tucked him inside her own cloak. I watched them for a long time after they disappeared into the rain.

Wasn't this all what I had wanted when I came here, to give them my eyes and have them see their world imprinted in them, the joys, the sorrows, the challenges and the triumphs? Why then did I feel as if the rain were my own tears ... torrents of them except that somewhere between where they began to fall and where they would splash and puddle they seemed to just ... evaporate?

Ormr

I close my eyes
Only for a moment, then the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind

The creature that emerged from the cocoon was not delicate, fluttery or feathered. The canvas had abraded the surface of my skin until it wept crimson from head to toe. In the darkness it looked black as the night sky itself, oozing, raw. Dust encrusted larynx could only bark in rasps.

"Find every bota, waterfilled or otherwise, clear the rain barrels, begin gathering everything drinkable." I didn't recognize my own voice even as I heard it snapping at those around me. Heirachy had no place here at the moment. Egos could be suckled later, elsewhere. Just do what needed to be done now.

The closest experience I'd known was a tornado when I was young .. coming back from camp. This quiet in the splintered aftermath ... was it merely the eye? There was no time to waste. I descended on Pop tart, silencing the high pitched wailing with a resounding slap that sent cracked echoes through everyone near by. Then put her in charge of folding the canvas, in fact she was to keep other slaves calm and find things for them to do. Save anything usable. Water first, meat, and canvas. Catching the arm of someone that was passing by, they were told to find cloth. Find a place in a wagon and pile anything that could be used for bandaging, that could be used for makeshift clothing. Another told to salvage furs.

The men had already swarmed in to make repairs to the wagons themselves. A hand caught my own arm to send me beneath the axle of a wagon. The salt from a sweaty hand searing into the exposed flesh, gnashed my teeth together. There was no time for pity to lace what needed to be done, not theirs, not mine. There was too much to be seen to. With adrenaline surged strengths they would lift the side of the wagons, the women would roll a wheel back into place and I like many other of the smaller slaves would creep beneath the slanted bottoms to slide pins into place. I was just one among many hundreds there ... all transformed the same ... we were survivors. We worked together as one. One creature ... a chimera.

Shroud

It was warm and snug and so dark. I felt him nestle into me, rest his hand on my hip to pull me closer. Pressing my face into that sweet curve of his back, inhaling the richness of his hair, this place I long so for again. His hair loose, spreading, covering my face, tickling my nostrils slipping down my throat, strangling, choking me. My own hand slipping into his, curling my fingers to twine, the grasp so strong, so firm, hurting, crushing tight.

Wrapped in your arms where its peaceful, back in your arms where I'm happy. Gloria!

Stay with me.

Sweet peaceful sleep overtaking me in my precious cocoon. Yes, I could stay here forever ... forever ... forever ... with you.

Michael row your boat ashore, hallelujah.

A chorus of young voices in unity echoing within the yellow wagon. I'd been lost in thought's of a tree house far away, staring at the horizon through a slip down window. Dusky blues emerging with purple, racing, swirling, forming. I was the first to see it. Why did I sit there watching for so long? Conical gyrations in a finger point dip. Pointing .. pointing straight at us.

Stay with me.

Follow the yellow brick road to the total eclipse of the sun. So sad it passed us by, maybe because we were singing .. singing

Chills the body but not the soul, hallelujah

We were returning from camp one day in the merry merry month of May and I was taken by surprise by ... Cracking, splintering ... wooden thoughts.

Auntie Em Auntie Em We aren't in Kansas anymore!

It isn't a magic school bus ride oh yeah ... oh yeah
Click the heels of your ruby slippers and chant there's no place like home.

Stay with me.

Ruby in the sky with diamonds. Ruby in the sky with ripping, shredding to reveal a glimmer of light. Light flooding, filling in caustic intensity. Escape the moon, escape the cocoon, escape the womb.

I'm here. I'm alive. I'm radio ... radio ... radioactive.

Parchment wings unfold, shattered, tattered so cold, so cold.

Freedom's just another word for nothing else to loose, you ain't nothing ... nothing to me. Feeling good is easy Lawd when baby sang the blues and feeling good was good enough for ... gasping for breath.

Someone was cutting me free.

Blown Away

"The way that first breath upon your nose stings and makes you see stars upon your eyes when you do, and then that first rise of steam but not from your bowl of blackwine, but your breath meeting the air" ... That had been Falon's description of snow. We were so eager to see it, to feel it ... not sand, not a blizzard of dust and dirt. Not this.

When the winds began to rise, I saw the boys safely into the wagons and battened down like little rations on a saddle pack. I was about to begin searching for Cana when a rider came to tell me I was needed farther out. Someone had been hurt. I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck rising. I didn't know where Falon was. All I had was a small pack. One turned out to be several and several turned out to be more.

I was not equipped for this ... for any of this. I didn't wait for them to come to me. As soon as one would be settled in I would step back out to help another. My mind just went numb and the faces became a blur, the wounds came and went beneath my hands. At times I had to hold one hand clutched to a wheel or the rail of a platform just to get from one place to the next, from one wagon to next. The ahns stretched into a sandpaper eternity.

"Get them into a wagon ... it doesn't matter whos ... just get them safe." Those words half silenced as a cover shredded from its moorings ... ripped from one of the nearby homes. As it sailed through the air toward me I remember thinking it looked like a used klennex. The slow motion surreality sped into fast forward when it draped over my chest, my eyes, paralyzing my arms and legs. I was sheathed like a mummy, tumbling end over end, rolling, spinning, blown away until the side of a wagon stopped the spiral.

Pull it gently and it won't hurt

If you feel like you're alone,
know, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life,
the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much
of this life to hang on.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts sometimes.
So, hold on, hold on.
Everybody hurts.
You are not alone.
~R.E.M.





It was during one of those quiet talks where I could see the fatigue beginning to wear on the healer's shoulders not just her eyes that she sent me off to her wagon for a medical pouch. The instructions had been to remove all but the basic contents. It would be how I could help. My little swatch added among the others. While another of the Healer's Clan was away, I could see to the smaller scrapes and scratches. It gave me a warm feeling inside .. an honor to be able to aid the woman ... to give.

She offered advice on how to approach the patients as a slave so that there were no misunderstandings, no hurt prides, no hurt egos, no getting under foot and maybe this time no sailing bell across the trail. It was still a good catch.

Ok now all the little boys and maybe bigger ones too had to watch out ... I was armed. So maybe it was just antiseptics and bandages. They were not yellow snoopy ones but I could draw smiley faces on some of them.

Windows

Color my world Draw on my heart
Take a picture of what you think
love looks like in your imagination
Write on my soul Everything you know
Use every word you've ever heard
To color my world
~West Life

Patches

Come wet a widow's eye
Cover the night with your love
Dry the rain from my beaten face
Drink the wine the red sweet taste of mine
Come cover me with you
For the thrill till you will take me in
Come comfort me in you ...
For me For you
Time devours passion's beauty
With me With you
~Come Cover Me

I've been carrying around this little swatch of fabric for a while now. It's yellow paisley with orange and red floral swirls on it. I could turn it over and over but I had no idea what to make with it. Insiration hadn't burned any new bright ideas in my head. For once I left it in the wagon next to Me too after a rousing night of 'why is' before he fell asleep. I crept from beneath the flap backwards and checked one last time before heading to the fires.

The long nights and early mornings had begun to take its toll on me but I could see it etched on the faces gathered there as well. Lines on the Mistresses' faces stirred that want to fix everything and make it all better part of me. They spoke of others with a caring worry that shaded the evening with a warmth. I've learned that their hearts are as big as the harriga is wide and it encompasses all.

The topic of Noodle's hair helped lighten the mood ... turn it from blue to a rosy pink. I haven't been around the fires much of late so this was news to me ... the new color thing. A master had coughed up a bottle of blue dye to return it to its original splendor. The women liked blue ... just the way she was but who would be the one to see to bringing back that luster was up for debate. In the meantime, the bottle had mysteriously disappeared.

Here goes one of my brilliant ideas into action, not on hairstyling 101, I liked the girl for a million different reasons, not because of her hair. My idea was to offer the little piece of fabric I had to patch the Mistress' pocket where the bottle had somehow fallen through. I was beginning to understand I can't always fix things but there were still ways to be of help. It may not be needed but like the little swatch it was there if anyone ever did. Enough little swatches given by all made a quilt or something like Joseph's coat, colorful, beautiful, useful.

After everyone else had turned in for the night, it was the kaiila Mistress that still watched over the camp, keeping the fire fed with little chips. The conversation began about some nut and honey layered pastries I'd made. They had been thrown together quickly over a fire and were by no means pretty. I wasn't even sure if they were edible but it all spun new plans for the future. Funny how that happens sometimes. We spoke of how he liked honey and maybe when I made more she could take some to him. Just not tell him I made them.

You love him don't you? Right to the core of things. What was there to say? She understood the silent nod. We spoke of how I came to her family and why, how I kept my distance now not because it made anything easier for me but that I didn't want to add any more pain or hurt.

It cut deep to hear her say that perhaps the boy was my destiny. It was not the destiny that I wanted, would I accept the responsibilities I'd been given .. yes. But don't tell me it is my destiny. Destiny ... that word makes my teeth grit together now. Fate, Destiny, the skies .. call it what you will but I have no fondness for its insertion of it's will over ours. I may be the kettle calling the pot black for my own slipshod patch job.

I was worried however, about watching over him. Could I manage to hurt him too? What if I made some big miserable mistake and it caused him pain? She tried to put away my fears by saying she thought I was the best thing that had ever happened to the boy. That in the walled cities, they had nannies .. someone that looked after the children, that it sounded like what was doing.

When the topic turned again, I already knew that there had been a little red headed waif addition around the wagons. It was hard not to notice when a Master .. even one only wagon wheel tall appraises you like a ripe tomato. She mentioned he would be there with us for a little while. I knew and I understood. I'd heard. It was another part of the concern that lined the women's faces ... another that they loved and cared for.

We were all little patches woven together.

Caught on the crossfire

Remember when you were young,
you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger,
you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon,
you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver,
you seer of visions, come on you painter,
you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

The day had started off with one of the new slaves making some Lisa Douglas blackwine that dulled a sharp knife trying to cut a piece off. It was the kind you chew rather than sip. The rest I don't think had anything to do with being wired for sound ... I ... didn't drink any of it.

I had to race back to brew a new kettle full that didn't make the healer jitter so bad she shook off her saddle. We talked. We talk openly as several of the women allow me to. They watch me or perhaps it is best said they watch over me. Which is a bit odd at times since they keep telling me I am a slave as if I don't already know that. My thighs may still be satin smooth and free of any marks but I am clad kajir, my throat bears the ring of steel and I offer ... well all that I offer ... on my knees but each day I am reminded none the less. Still they probe and prod and push things inside like turning the soil, adding fertilizer so a seed will sprout and reach for the sky.

Falon was doing that while we walked. She wanted to know what was on my mind. She picked a hell of a day to ask. I'd woke up ravenous, not for food but to sink my teeth into ... vivid, bite off a nice hunk and chew on it. I read off the thoughts like it was a recipe ... There was a dollop of sadness, half cup of sorrow and pain, three handfuls of joy and enthusiasm, stir in lots of new friends and maybe a nemesis or two to taste. I suppose beneath it all there was just a hunger for ... more. Though that last word was held apart so it had a different meaning than its context.

The ride from the day before came up and I told her it had awakened something inside me, something I thought maybe I had lost, something vital but maybe it was just misplaced. Her answer ... 'tucked away forgotten until that one moment that sprung the doors wide and let out that which you put away for so long' received a hissed yes as my reply.

More what ...? Excitement? Adventure? I took a long breath before I told her ... 'everything'. We had to laugh as we spoke the same thing at the same time ... that want to feel more, see more, touch more, to express more. Mediocrity had no flavor now and I had to glance at her to see if I had overstepped my bounds. The reassuring look said there was nothing wrong with saying it .. she said I was of the ground, the grasses, the skies and the very breath of the bosk. She told me she felt like there were two types of slaves here ... you have slaves of the Tuchuks, and you have Tuchuk slaves. I was one of the latter. Oooh, stroke my ego a little will ya?

I was more free than I had ever been. It was a freedom that began long ago next to his wagon. Now before all of the Gorean rules and regulations thumpers go jumping up on the soapbox ... let me say that everyone that is human is slave to something, something they give control over them ... it may be thumping rules and regulations, their creator, a Master or dominant, maybe just their blackwine every morning. Maybe it is the fierceness of remaining in control they lose control within. He had begun to build a free woman .. or setting her free, one that had no fears, allowed nothing that would prevent her from being who she was inside. That was what I had lost along the way, that vitality of being .. me and the woman I was within. Now I was sinking my teeth in and pulling off a healthy bite. I was far from finished but the first true taste of freedom was sublime. Hey don't blame me ... he started it.

I was loving every moment of walking among the tribe as a woman free of fears, steeped in the passions of being a Tuchuk woman ... until ... she began working on that wound again. I tried so hard not to let it show how ripped apart inside I felt. I knew it was infected. She knows too. She spoke it openly how she could see everything that was painted on my heart, brimming behind my eyes, how my soul screamed it.

How gentle and soothing her words when she advised me to begin making sense of it all, to pick up the pieces and put them back together, to look at him again and see if there was anything left to salvage. She reminded me that I had said he was worth ... everything to me.
It was from inside that rawness that I cried out ... I was not nothing, I was not one that life will smudge in the dust beneath a heel and merely crumble. Skies, if she didn't let out her own war whoop and yell that's what she wanted to hear. She was going to clasp my hand and drag me with her.

It was a good day but I felt caught on the crossfire. There was still no inner calm, no release of the healing tears. They didn't feel like they were mine to cry ... they were another's pain, another's hurt and I mourned them deeply.

Ninety to Nothing

Three golden months while summer on us stole
I have read your joyful tale another time,
Breathing more freely in that larger clime
And learning wiselier to deserve the whole.
Your Spirit, Master, has been close at hand
And guided me, still pointing treasures rare,
Thick-sown where I before saw nothing fair
And finding waters in the barren land,
Barren once thought because my eyes were dim.
Like one I am grown to whom the common field
And often-wandered copse one morning yield
New pleasures suddenly; for over him
Falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight,
New mystery in every shady place,
In every whispering tree a nameless grace,
New rapture on the windy seaward height.
So may she come to me, teaching me well
To savour all these sweets that lie to hand
In wood and lane about this pleasant land
Though it be not the land where I would dwell.

The drive north had begun again leaving the little valley, with its ribbons of silver streams that wrapped around it like a present, far behind. We left it entrenched with mud and the tracks of the Tuchuk that rolled over it, perhaps forever changed, because it would know we had been there. We left it without another thought as our hungers, our thirsts took us forward, to the north, to the future. All that we take with us is our lives, our family, what we hold passionately deep inside ourselves. Even a beautiful blossom has to be dried and pressed if it is to survive the very nature of our existence.

Within the inner core of the harriga though is still a rich way of living, the neucleus motion never ceasing in it's energy. Slaves swarming over, between, under and around the wagons, spread out into the herds like the pulse running through the veins. The men driving the body of the entire camp, the people, the bosk, the kaiila, the sleen onward to a new better destination in raucous cries, whistles and shout. Head 'em up ... Mooooove 'em out. The women creating the sense of home that we carry with us where ever we go, tending to the inner workings of our people, the meat, the hides, our weak, our hearts and souls in renewal everyday.

I had felt as if I'd fallen somewhere between arriving here a stranger, untrusted, unaware and unaccustomed to my new world. It had taken me time to dust off my knees, check to see if I bled from a major artery, take in whether anything had broken inside. I ached. I ached all over from the tumble and afraid the tribe was leaving me behind. That sprint forward to catch up left me winded, quiet at times .. yes, steeped deep in contemplations.

I felt like Me too when I first saw him, running after the others, wanting so much to fit in and whopping everyone in the head with the end of my unbalanced lance until I began to doubt. I began to doubt I ever could. I began to doubt whether I could keep my promise to Fonce ... to live. Living is not merely surviving what comes but taking hold and finding more than just breath. It is seizing it with both arms wide in a tight embrace and refusing to be washed away in the currents.

My story differs from the boy's. It did not take facing the extreme for me to grasp hold. It was just catching the hand of one of the women and leaping to the back of her mount as she set the beast to a furious run. She drove me back to life with the feel of power beneath me, the power of the Tuchuk on the move, the feel of the wind stinging my cheeks, not in a gentle kiss but the force of it's will against mine, with the fragrance and taste of leather and bosk grease, the aroma of sweat, blood and tears ... the mingling of tens of thousands determined to not just survive, not even just live but thrive despite their stumblings, despite their aches, their sorrows and even their doubts at times. I filled my lungs with it. I inhaled it until it hurt. I was breathless, I was exhilarated, I was burning inside with the rawness of it.

My heart and mind was still racing ninety to nothing when we returned and the kaiila Mistress lifted me on her shoulders metaphorically. In one sentence she changed my life. She saw the spark and blew the tiny ember to a glowing fire. I could help exercise the kaiila in the northern camps, not just feed them and groom them but ride. I was the newest of the kaiila clan slaves. There were no words to express the feeling, the thrill, the joy I felt. I felt. This was the only thing that had been able to slip through the emptiness, the lonliness of not being with him. She had cut through the wall of nothingness letting in a small sliver of light into the darkness.

Through that fissure, the floodgates opened and the tears finally began to streak my cheeks. With cries that would wake the rest of the harriga, I danced. I danced a dance to life and living.

The Valley of ....

Oh pretty play friends
come out and play with me,
I'll bring my dollies three,
climb up my apple tree-
Climb in my rain barrel,
slide down my cellar door,
And we'll be jolly friends
forever more



This valley in its splendor was a place that made me want to turn over every stone to see what was underneath. It was a place to return to someday so I could inspect the convergence of the three streams that wove together into one with a deeper current. A place to study the fertile grasses beyond each bank and every flower that dared to lift its head to the sky. During the few days stop of the wagon trail, it wasn't the valley itself that proffered the greatest wonders. It was small moments that held treasures that touched me most.

A moment of gentle conversation with new found friends allowed opportunity to share that we were deeper than the surface that most see or look for. A moment when our excitement of being together could not contain itself into just that one moment but began to twine ... one then two then three like a braid. A song, the lyrics and a flute coming together to create a harmony.

A moment when He allowed me to stretch to reach him. A moment where what I had to offer was accepted even if it was just a bowl of blackwine. A precious moment when he gave me something I had not expected , had not sought in return ... a smile. A moment of hope that one day I could finish what had been left unsaid, to remove a stone that had been placed on top another stone ... to tear down a wall.

So, You like to explore, bell? A simple question asked by another slave brought revelation. Yes, I suppose I do. It was not just the stones I wanted to lift one from atop another, not just one that I wanted to turn over and see what was beneath ... seeing what there was to see ... it was experiencing, exploring ... everything.

A widow's mite

All I have to Give

I do not have
what others give
I cannot cry aloud
of love
I have only
what I've lived
But cold unfeeling
now begins to thaw
Erased, replaced slowly
by something strange and new
Will you accept
what small things I can offer
and know
I give them all to you
I would give a rainbow
if I could
Some soothing rain
after a long hot drought
Maybe just some shade
beneath a gnarled old tree
Or bring a smile to
the edge of your mouth
These things may not
mean much to others
But they are what
I would give
Trivial nothings
to so many
But they mean
the world to me


My gifts are from somewhere different than most. It is what I see through my eyes, what beauties that touch my heart and leave my soul itself breathless. It is not loudly sung, boldly boasted or even openly lain at anyone's feet. It is quiet but it is sincere. I offer what touches me most.

The weaver accepted my gift, she brought it to her bossom to cherish. There were no words needed, no thank you's or you're welcome's. Just to see her take in the moment ... make it her own and unwrap it to become part of her was enough. There atop the cover of her wagon, the rest of the universe seemed to roll out like a one of her glorious tapesties before us. I hadn't looked to her for anything in return but the allowance of being there, to breathe in the sight, to taste the splendor through her eyes was what she gave me. It was that vision that I took with me in exchange.

Sometimes the simpliest answer can do wonders

I chose a few rows over to offer out skins of water. It worked well. There were none left by midday and it gave me a few moments to myself. I found a rock to perch on and grew lost in the warmth of the sun. Nothing really came to mind and if something did I put it away quickly. Between Ts'ya's unique expressions of affection, the larl's love tap, the tension that still wove between my former Master and I and the rousing rounds of who's on first with the other slave's yesterday I was wound tight. When I heard one of the Masters come up behind me to speak, I spun around ready to fight. He laughed at me and my defensive posture. He laughed at me ... but he reached down to pull me up with him on the mount.

Events of the day before, sort of came in a lazy banter. He just let me vent while we rode. I was worried about the Ubar, I was worried about his beast. I would never intentionally hurt anyone or anything. Food and danger didn't count, survival ran through my veins enough to know the difference. He did say he had stopped me from bailing back into the fray so no one would get hurt. Feeling like I would have been the victor got a little deflated when he said he meant me as well.

He had managed to get all scuffed up last eve himself and I worried over checking the wounds for a moment before settling back in. Despite all the lessons the healer has given me in first aid, it doesn't seem to be my specialty. Interogation on the other hand, was his specialty and the easy manner of it this time asked about why there had been a scuffle between us girls in the first place. I can tell you this, his joke about us being territorial didn't get a laugh. I'd just been trying to serve, then I had just been trying to help. I would like to be close again but I was really and truly just trying to serve. I'm a camp slave and that is what we do. Geez I live here just like everyone else, I work here, I work hard.

I knew I had made mistakes, a whole lot of them in a whole lot of places. Some I felt far more acutely than others. But HE didn't know that, well maybe now he did or at least now he knew that I knew. Schtufffffff kept rumbling through my head like I've always managed to make him angry, hurt him or dissappoint him. He didn't put his collar on me until after damn near killing me a few times. I was quick to mention He had saved raven and I from the kaiila's claws .. that had not gone unnoticed. I wasn't trying to get close ... I wasn't. Well maybe. The suggestion that I should just sit near him, be available to everyone else but still near was met with a sigh. That was all I was doing lately and it hadn't eased any of the tensions, in fact it seemed to just make it all worse.

Can you ever fix the wrongs? He had a few ideas ... good kaiilas rides, simple times by the fires, lying down to look at the stars. How did we get on that topic anyway? I keep changing the subject with everyone and it keeps getting brought back up.

'Sometimes the simpliest answer can do wonders, belle'

I felt the floodgates rise against the backs of my lashes and this time he let me talk about something else.

The rest of the afternoon was more about what I had learned of tracking. There was as much detail as I could provide in describing each of the ones I saw. I had begun to recognize patterns. I felt rather proud when he said I would have made a good hunter. I knew his non pattern pattern as well as anothers .. Ts'ya's. The scrape of metal on a rock near the stream, and the fact that I knew he was following me often. The confession didn't come easy trying to speak of him. He wasn't rational so it wasn't easy to predict what he would do or when or for that fact why. It was the first time I felt like anyone heard me. I was afraid for my former Master. I didn't mention I was afraid for the boy too because the weaver rode up.

It is always good to see her and this time she surprised me. She had been looking for me. She said when the wagons circled at the end of the day I could climb on top hers with her and watch over the harriga. She even gave me permission to crawl up there when she wasn't around.

While we rode I listened. I learned a great deal both about the man and the woman. In the end there was a greater respect and admiration for him. Even beneath all the responsibilities he had, he had the gift of understanding and even more ... listening. In the woman I found a connection, in the depth of her feelings and convictions and her willingness to stand by them.

The Master said that three good things had happened to me today. When I left to finish my chores I was thinking of them. If you thought that the first was a good kaiila ride, you would be mistaken. See, he gave me the simplest answer.

Stumble

I had to have looked like hell warmed over and still served cold the next day. Not even blackwine cut the thick taste out of my mouth but I felt better. The migraine had eased into just a headache. I could handle that. I still had to give the boy a bath but first there were chores to see to. It was the weapons Master that I ran into during the early part of the drive. This was my chance to ask him about the tracking lessons. It was probably the only thing that held true interest to me at the moment, real excitement of any kind. I thought I might be good at it and I had even been practicing so I could show him. There were the everyday sort of tracks I could recognize now and I mentioned some others too. Those he surprised me when he said I described two males. That thought turned over and over in my head. No, it couldn't be. Not that I would say he was wrong but ... there was supposed to be a female and a male .. both accounted for .. right?

They still haunted me, disturbed something in my rationale. I could see those eyes. I heard him calling for me in the distant remembrance .. breathe bell .. look around you and remember where you are. When I looked around it was the ringing of coins and a saucy raven that had joined us. I made the coins ring some more. I like the sounds.

That line of sight focused on the Ubar riding up as well. He looked dusty enough to need a lot more than a drink of water but that was what I offered. There wasn't dissappointment when he patted the fresh botas hanging off the pommel, just a little relief that he let me speak to him and didn't carve me into tidbits with that glare. Hot damn, it was all good there for a moment until ...

raven tripped me. She swore it wasn't on purpose but the addition of 'I told you I would kick your ...' sure didn't make it sound or feel that way. Oops hell! Ever have one of those moments gone to pot that slow motion makes all that much more vivid as it unfolds? We both toppled beneath the kaiila and if he hadn't reined in hard to make the beast veer, we would have been toe jamb. Why didn't he just let the kaiila be? That jerk on the bit cut Rocca's mouth bad enough to fill his nostrils with blood. I was trying to get the other girl off me so I could help and all that was coming out of my mouth was I'm sorry .. so sorry. So much for the first real encounter with him. I kicked dirt piles as I moved aside trying not to mutter anything stupid.

I was doing alright too, I think, until Rocca swiped a fang aganst his shoulder. I have no idea where the blue wisp came from but I rolled right over her trying to be of some help. What was the purpose of the first aid lessons if all you are going to do is gawk at the sight of bare skin? So what does he say? Why do you care? Arghh, if I had fangs I would have swiped him with one too.

Well I do care. I always have, I always will and maybe I've learned from my mistakes. I don't know if I got the wound clean with all his wandering back and forth but he finally picked me up and sent me sailing across the lane at the other Master so he could tend to the kaiila. It really was a good catch, thankfully. And it was a good thing he had a tight hold on me when noodle popped off about giving me a black eye. It was only the sound of a barked command to get more botas and finish what I'd started that halted me from bailing back off that kaiila with a 'bring it' look in my eye.

I headed off thinking there was a lot there I left unfinished.

I'll wager you a lizard it is a land of bosk and honey

My day would continue despite the lack of sleep. The dull ache in my head grew to a razor sharp quiva stuck somewhere between my eye and my brain and with it came a roaring that just simply could not be shaken away. Everything around me became an assault on the senses. I finished putting away pots and kettles at the fire and made sure that the last curls of smoke were vanquished before I gathered more botas. It was going to be a warm day so the straps were layered over my chest until I looked like a shooter girl at a night club. Changing my pattern from running behind the riders trying to offer drinks, I just walked beyond the first of them and wove my way back.
It wasn't the first time I'd seen him in the past few days, nor the first time he waved me away before I could say anything or offer anything. When the healer who had been in deep conversation with him, had no need of me either, I simply moved further on. It wasn't long after, he did too.
Another Mistress approached with a kaiila load of cherubic faces. It was a lure I could not resist even with my head splitting wide open. Bits of teases about our journey created the peals of laughter that only slightly eased the pain. Storm called them all her urt pack. Seemed only one of them was hers and the rest naturally gathered. We ... the children and I that is ... wagered lizards and made plans for worm hunting and daisy plucking and played a new variation of touch football with a half empty water skin. As I do with Me Too I just watched over them making sure they didn't become a new tread on a wagon wheel or something sticky under kaiila talons.
The kaiila Mistress joined up with the little Master. She raises that boy right. He was already atop his own pony even though his windscarf covers him from the teeny round eyes all the way down to drape onto the saddle. I managed this time to tell her I'd been sent to serve the boy. I think I even managed not let any of the massive tidal wave of emotions show. Well maybe not much anyway.
The last thing in the world I wanted to talk about was mating or men or love. The topics that come about sometimes make me want to dive for cover in the tall grass. I left them to wander off again. It must have looked like the pied piper and his gang when I took the children with me on a raid of a serving wagon. We pillaged and plundered bosk pies, milk and cookies. It all still feels as if it is light years away, even the laughter.
When Oquai emerged from the shadows of the wagons, I could bear no more. She took over the next watch and I went to find a place far away from the wagons, far away from everyone as I could possibly go. I kept my heart wrapped up tight like the healers bandaging, my head despite the impending threat of volcanic eruption was safe but it all had to give somewhere. Perhaps my soul cracked a fraction when the tidal wave of nausea set in, but there were still no tears. Behind the shooting stars of light I just gave in for a little while. Tomorrow .. I fell asleep thinking ... tomorrow.

In the stillness

I woke in the middle of the night. I tried to squeeze a few more ihn of sleep behind my closed eyes without any luck and finally rose. There would be blackwine made before Master Rook woke this morning. I would even beg forgiveness when he did for sipping a little of it myself.

It seemed I was not the only one that sleep eluded. The crunch of dirt beneath the bared feet was enough to tell me who it was without looking up. He crouched next to me in silence for a long time before he spoke. He asked if it was a dream that had awakened me and I answered yes. He had thought so, he had one too. My probing of its contents was not going to make it unfold. There were simply queries that came instead. I smoothed over the tale of the fishing bait by telling him that it was treasured so much that I was now his. He never turned to look at me but spoke to the fire itself with the voice of an old soul. He knew the truth.

As if lightening the dark mood that thought put me in, he turned the probe to me. What was my old world like, those that I left behind, my name and its meaning? Most of it just washed over him until the last. He rolled it on his tongue several times as if tasting the flavor of it. He had no idea what a lion was but he liked the derivation that formed. lin ... lin ...linna. Linna it would be then. I sort of liked it too.

A gentle reminder that it was going to be a long day and even longer without much sleep was met with a shrug. It almost hurt to see not the silohuette of a boy stand and begin walking back to the wagon but a glimpse of the man he was going to become. I felt that screaming inside ... Let him just be a boy, let him enjoy the wonders of now before he had to bear the weight of the future. There was only a flicker of fingers and a snap of them that brought me to my feet to follow.

He went that way

With the new tasks of breaking camp in the mornings, a quick barbeque near the tailgate of a bosk drawn RV, I had little time to think of the mistakes I'd made. Now and then a glimmer of remembrance would send shudders of emotions roiling through me so great I could hardly breathe. It was not the time to succomb to them, instead I gave in to surviving this first venture across the plains.

There were times I felt inept watching the other girls effortlessly follow through with the varied tasks. I stuck with what I knew. Shouldering as many botas as I could, I wove through the rows to offer them to the thirsty. Later the skins would be replaced by pastries filled with meats to dole out. While the evening began to fold in on itself, new fires would be lit, a new camp would be set up for the night, and tending to a whole new set of details while the rest of the harriga caught up on much needed rest.

In the meantime, the kaiila Mistress has given Me Too a mount of his very own. At first I thought how wonderful! Then it dawned on me. How was I supposed to keep up with him now that he was mobile? The Tuchuk have a grand sense of humor, I can tell and she is without a doubt full blooded. After a bit of casual conversation, she dropped this little hint that the boy needs a bath and when I didn't bite, she suggested that I give it to him probably because I like playing in water so much. I groaned at the mental image of the mud pies that would create by simply dunking him in. If anyone thought that being chased out of the stream by a fish or being licked upside the head by a kaiila or thrashed by the wispy parts on the other end was amusing then the second day of the move was going to be a knee slapper watching me weave diagonally through the rows of moving wagons, chasing after the rear end of a north bound kaiila with Me Too spurring the mount just enough to stay several strides ahead of me. I wound up missing a few chores and it was even later in the night before that blanket would find my company. He still needs a bath and now I do too. I think I still have a kaiila kiss in my hair and we are not even going to discuss my toes.

The Journey

With each step, I began to appreciate more of the world around me, not simply as a move north but as a new journey. More than aware of my fall from grace, I felt every rung that I had hit on the way down. My position is now the lowest of the low among the tribe, slave to an unscarred warrior. Not one of those around me treated me with anything other than acceptance of the woman within. There was where I found a peace, an inner quiet. It was from here, this place that I could turn my eyes, my heart and my soul upward. With that lift of my chin came a deep rooting of my pride. It spread within me as if it sought to grab hold of the tiniest of nutrients so that it could soar ever higher.
I had a run in with a fish at the stream that gave the morning a more than comical effect. One of the Mistresses said she wanted to see the re-match when I warned it that I was far bigger than it was. Perhaps I will one day, when we return south, when he is there to defend his territory and I remember there was a challenge. Why is that small window of time so important? The crystal clarity of it was not from behind frore coated glass. All that mattered was the laughter, the feel of sharing the moment and that we each had turned our focus to the future. We made plans to meet up along the way, offer parts of our selves, and be there if another needed.
Seeing one of them riding in the distance across the plains became a glory. Seeking one with an answer for a grease spot on leathers started an adventure. Watching exchanges of gifts from the heart was precious. The tenderness of a kiss on the top of my head was far more than a balm and crawling up on the top of a wagon to unfurl a banner spread the entire world out before me in a splendor I'd never witnessed before. I am awed and I am humbled. I am inspired and grasp hold of an arrogance that runs so wide that I turned to where the walled city may be over the horizon knowing it could never encase it all now. Not to be able to see the sky, to feel the wind or to hear the bosk ... would be not to live. Those words spoken aloud did amuse one of the elders. He said I was becoming quite a little tuchuk slave. I held my head up, turned to him and dared to contradict that. I was 'not' becoming one ... I already was ... the little larl one, one that even the Toorians should fear. Shhhhhh, can you hearing them trembling?
I kicked a little mound of dust so that it plumed upward in a spiral, then wafted into the wind behind us. I was not simply going to walk forward among the others. I was going to dance with them every step of the way to the beat of different drummers.
This is my first passing of the walls. It only took seven for those of Jericho to fall.

The Mask

"Dear angels, speak to moons that meet me without forgiveness and let me feel the brighter day. Hold me close so I can feel your beating heart. See me not as I was but who I long to be. I will no longer cover my mouth lest I fail to speak the right words. Nor will I cover my eyes lest I fail to see that someone else's vision is not my own. No longer do I cover my ears lest I fail to hear my own singing has filled the room and I had not recognized my own voice before. Cover me with the warmth of your holy blanket whimsical angels and let the morning be everything I could have imagined. Cover me so that I will feel the ultimate freedom of finding my own eyes and ears and the things I choose to taste in life will be guided by my own inner being and longing."
A fairy tale is not a tale at all, it is an angel's gift of mist on roses tied with ribbons that they have left for me. It is the gift of rising up and seeing me free like a long lost friend that I have missed. There is no reward in holding regret for mistakes made forever. I turn and pick up a wooden case, I had forgotten how beautiful its contents were. It is like looking at my own inner self. Lifting the lid, under the satin pillow is, to my surprise, the gifts so lovingly placed. All the treasures that I choose to accept as being worthy to hold and use are freely mine. I accept what has always been available to me through whimsical angels. This is of course a gift for you as well for the Wind and fantasies have never felt more gentle.~ Kathy Ostman-Magnusen Kathy's Art • Whimsical Angels The Mask

Awake

I can honestly say I learned a great deal about dreams today. All kinds. Whether they are vivid color intuitions, pleasant or frightening images while you sleep, the release of reality, or even a desired goal or purpose; the most important thing to remember is that you will wake up.

I thought when I went looking for him that I had something to give, a feel good story. In the end though it had to be either all about him or that left that it had to be all about me. No lines of distinction in between even if if was about something entirely different. Even if it was about the welfare of one small little member of the tribe. He had told me he didn't hear many good stories. What? There were as many of them as there were people of this tribe. All it took was to listen. It all made no sense then suddenly it did. No dream, no fantasy just a stark realization.

Hearing that my destiny had been set, that I should be glad to know what it was, that I had made my choice was eye opening. There was a lot I could have said. A lot I wished I had said but in the end I said nothing. raven told me I should have shut up. That I should have lied. That if I ever tried to get close again she would kick my ass. I could find no reason to conceal truth, not to him, not to anyone. I would not lie, it went against the very fiber of who I was, not just because I am a slave. The last was an easy prominse to make. I'm not sadistic by nature so there is no need to kick the kaiila.

There was no mistake when told my service will be to the boy from this point on, to Me too and whatever family that has taken him in. He is still too young to be a scarred warrior, hasn't earned the right to own anything of his own, so my status of camp slave as far as I know has not changed. I found some comfort in that. It was a good feeling to know that I could be close now and not just a few stolen moments when I could. I could devote my time to him, the time that was not taken with camp chores anyway. Devotion. That had new meaning to me. I stretched languidly into that new found ideal.

The bits that I have were gathered from the slave wagon and wrapped inside my blanket. Moving as a camp slave isn't a hard task. There was only the brush Palla gave me and a few bells left over. When I had them rolled in the blanket safely tucked away, I went to catch up on my duties.Thoughts swam in a fevered fury inside my brain which left me in a daze. But by the end of the day all I knew for sure was ... One, I felt nothing despite the fact that ... Two, I was certainly wide awake.

It wasn't beneath Mistress Cana's wagon or even Master Rook's that I tucked my bed roll. It was a under a supply wagon instead. There I just watched the winds move a few blades of grass for a long time until I heard the small feet moving to where I was. The edge of the blanket rose in welcome and I left the inner part of my arm draped with it when it lowered. I kissed the top of the molasses mop then tucked it beneath my chin with a smile. Maybe I am just a dreamer but I was thinking this time I could just be ...

kaleidoscope

So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.

~ Collective Soul

Anticipation, preparation, enthusiasm combined with elbow and wagon grease had more than swept through the entire harigga. It was bustling everywhere. It was contagious. Double somersault right into the midst of it all. I had no time to think other than what task was handed to me at the moment. No sooner than I finished one project another was already chomping at the bit to be done ... yesterday. I was loving it.

Except when Palla bless her little bitty weathered heart decided that she needed more hands to help paint her wagon. I tried to balk at doing any painting but she was not going to take no for an answer. Not just the sides which she had exacting specifications for but the top as well. She had decided that it should look like the ground that we were going to travel over so that whatever lingering evil spirits might be on the winds couldn't ... see her. Being that I had slept up there many a night, she said I was perfect to hop up there and hop to it. I did have a lot better luck with this project than the last. For one she wanted the murial and too no one came up there with me to distract me. I am not sure that the camoflage was precisely what she wanted but it was nice and mottled tan by the time I crawled back down. No sooner than my feet lit on the dirt she whopped me with a dust broom and said I missed a spot. Back up I went to study my artwork from a few different angles before I put a gray spot on the side near the front. I told her she was right, it needed a rock. That was about the time she alluded to the idea that I should have thought of that the first time. I am not sure why but I like her and it had nothing to do with the fact she gave me jam on a piece of bread for helping out.

I'd asked Cana if she minded that I slept close to her wagons and she said I was welcome there anytime not just when all I could do was topple into my blanket either. I slid under Master Rook's wagon long after dusk but couldn't fall asleep right away. The rush of adrenaline still pumped through my veins. I tried to imagine the move when it actually began. I always used to enjoy parades down MLK Boulevarde but that was what ... maybe 100 floats? This would be tens of thousands, not in a one after another line but spread out across the plains as far as one could see in every direction. I was shaking my head at the vastness of it all. It would have to look like a kaleidascope from the skies.

One of the girls tossed an extra blanket to me and I tucked it under my chin with my hands curled under it. The Mistress keeps everyone occupied at all times, but it just had an easy going feel to it. Rook had taken a shine to the boy even if it was to polish his noggin now and then. There was kaiila to help with and a warm spot to sleep. It came to me though ... remembering helping the healer, maybe some of the outer wagons needed help too. I fell asleep with a smile pondering that.

Where is the instruction manual?

I did not want to get up this morning. The air was cool and brisk and that little blanket was wrapped tight around me. I tried to keep my eyes clinched tight so they wouldn't open on their own. When I did dare to peep one open, the dawn met me in full splendor. It beckoned with tendril fingers of light prying through the clouds, sweet talked me with a kiss of warmth from the rays of the sun so much so that I flung the cover back and tried to race to the stream and back before the chill could swat at my bottom. I ... almost suceeded. I think that was the part that made me chuckle to myself. I decided that today I would spend my time away from the fires, away from everyone else. At the stream, the sounds of little boys honing their raiding, pillaging and plundering skills to a fine art seduced me into lingering while I filled the buckets. I had a good vantage point where I could see them most of the time though now and then I would have to adjust my location a little to keep up with their progress. But I was actually tossing pebbles in the stream instead of making sure any of the liquid got into the containers, watching the ripples as they branched from shore to shore back onto themselves.

That was where the kaiila Mistress and Master Rook found me. The Master found a place to warm himself in the sun ... a place where he could keep an eye on the Mistress and on the boy. See, I was not the only one that did that. She found a good spot to gather mud into her basket. I found that we both liked to watch the sun rise and the rest of the conversation just seemed to flow.

How refreshing that was, to banter, to parry words, to communicate. There is something about her that I have always found special. I have an admiration for her for many reasons that has grown deeper after today. She opened me up with a delicate skill that didn't leave me feeling as if I'd been gutted and tossed aside, more like carefully filetted as an entree. One topic just seemed to blend naturally into another as if it was all just one subject. In a way I guess it was. We talked about life, we talked about life on the plains. When we hit some of those touchy spots I would ease out of the subject into another. One subject more than any other. There would be one of those gentle rises of a brow but she allowed it. Many times that that soft spoken voice simply surprised me. I would be missed if I went with Master Vao. Missed? That was only a small portion of the lessons she would teach me. She never seemed to mind when I would turn my attention for a moment to see where the boys went. She showed me patience, she showed me understanding.

There was a truth to her words when she said she drew life from the plains. She would live and die here. I think something of the plains would cease to exist if she were not here. I watch her, I try to learn from her, I watch her with the little Master, trying to learn how to ...

I wouldn't finish the sentence but she did ... to be a Mother. She asked me of mine. I'd not thought of my mother in a long time. I would never be able to return to her and I would not want to see her here. She would be barbarian too .. a slave. I could not .. I would not picture her in this world. She was not much different in her own. She lived a life of silent service to one man. She did it with grace, with elegance, with that soft spoken strength that I see in the kaiila Mistress. I told Cana that all I would allow myself to remember of my mother was being held in her arms and the sweet lullabies she sang against my ear and it seemed to touch her deeply.

She told me that she knew it had been difficult for me but she had watched me grow, watched me grow stronger. She could never know how healing it was to have heard these things. There was only one answer I could give her. It didn't come out with the confidence that I had hoped but it was sincere ... I am Tuchuk. She agreed. Had I needed vaildation so thirstily that I drank in her words as if I had never tasted such a sweet drink before? If so then she fortified me, fed me meat not just milk. It was more than just words, she made me feel the pride she had in me in a way that I never wanted to lose it.

That feeling that there was a reason I was here, that I belonged here had not changed. Even now. I just wasn't so sure what it was anymore. If it is to be here for Me too then I am a lucky woman. I look back and I can see her words about our path through life .. it is the path itself that is our purpose and that we hope that at the end of it, we are spoken well of.

All of this solidified the things I believed in. We were not verr, we did not simply huddle around the strong and leave our weak as sacrifice. If I had to run in front of a larl to protect even one I would. If it meant sleeping on the ground my lifetime, in holding firm to those ideals, it was worth it. There were others besides the young Master that I felt the same of. I would stand for them with blood, sweat and tears. My Tribe .. mine. I am not sure she even knows that it was because of much she said that I reached down into the pit of my stomach and drew the larl back up where he belonged ... what it had taken from me, what I had been a small part of helping Me too find.

She taught me a great deal about little boys in just one morning ... small ones that still tussle over a mound of dirt and big dark ones as well. They don't come with instructions but at least with little ones you can paddle their bottoms when they need it. She taught me a lot about love. You have to love yourself before you can truly love someone else. She taught me about people in one sentence ... sometimes it is not that they do not know what is around them and not that they do not care, they may choose not to see, choose not to feel because they do not understand and sometimes they need you more than you know. She said I had the instincts of a Mother. We love them regardless, watch over them even when they do not know we are there, we take great pride in them even when it is time to turn loose.

I did not become a Tuchuk because a ring was placed in my nose. I did not become a woman because of a moment of passion. I did not become a Mother because my womb opened and I did not become a friend because I shared a bit of pastry. These are things that I have worked hard for, learned hard lessons to achieve, carved out in my new world and made my own.

I knew what to tell Me too about the fireflies now ... the truth .. they were not Tuchuk.

Firefly in a jar

Tonight, I sat on the bottom step of the slave wagon watching the sun go down. My big toe drawing a number of patterns in the dirt while I thought back over the day. Yesterday, I'd captured a jar of fireflies to give the one that used to own me. They were supposed to be bait to go night fishing with. It always seems like such good ideas when I think of them. Me too even helped me poke holes in the top of the jar. I think he liked that part more than helping catch the neon little bugs. I couldn't help but watch the determined little face as he gouged out the metal to make room for air inside. He seemed so happy, so unlike the boy I first laid eyes on. I sat there bursting with pride at what may have been to others just holes but to him it was a sense of accomplishment. There was such wide eyed enthusiasm when he made me promise to tell him if the Ubar liked them and of course that he had helped.

I don't know anything about taking care of fireflies. I don't know much about taking care of little boys. When I woke this morning to find one of the little glowing critters taking a folded leg nap on the bottom of the jar, it scared me. They had to be alright. They just had to be. I thought maybe the healer could help. Maybe she could .. well fix the one Me too had named Glitter. I was off with the jar in hand to search for the woman. She was at the stream and seemed honestly concerned enough to look at the things. It was only when he spoke to raven that I realized he was even there. So much for the gift being a surprise.

That was where the whole world simply turned itself upside down. raven came up saying she had heard a noise and saw something moving in the grass. Two guesses what came to my mind. He barked a command that we return to camp .. now. I didn't want to leave him, maybe I shouldn't have. I could 'maybe' everything about this day and it will not change it. Running back to the harriga gave the firefly Me too called Spark a concussion and he wound up on the bottom of the jar too. The Mistress, raven and I got everything ready in case ... then we tried not to worry. When I saw him return safe and sound with a lanky, legs clawing at the air trying to get away little sleen cub, I was just glad he was alright. I decided that maybe waiting to try and talk to him wasn't a good idea. Remember what I said about my ideas. I stammered, I fidgeted, I managed to not to squeak but nothing came out quite like I wanted. Would it have been easier if the conversation was not in front of so many? Like I said, I could 'maybe' everything about this whole day and it is not going to change it.

I knew this was going to hurt. I knew it when I first had the dream of the boy. I knew it when I left my Master's wagon that day the camp collar was placed on my throat again. I knew it when I opened my mouth to say ... I hadn't wanted to be away so long.

I didn't know it was going to feel like a bosk had kicked me in the chest with both hooves.

See, I didn't tell him about Me too, not about the dream or the larl. Those are different stories meant for a different time. I didn't even tell him about the fireflies. It doesn't even matter what I did tell him. It was from so far away, it couldn't be heard. I hit something solid in a small piece he had said ... it was about hard learned lessons. Not the part about learning to appreciate more what one had when one no longer has it. It was the part about it being harder on more than just ourselves. In all the time I have known him ... He had never spoken of the feelings of anyone else before, only of how he felt. There was the shift in the axis.

I felt the claws of the larl sink deeper than when it had first struck. I took a bite of it and swallowed it whole. I felt its talons cut their way through my vocal cords, through my esophagus and down into the pit of my stomach. When I left I was laughing and running with the other girls to decorate bosk. None of them knew I was running through a weight so thick I could hardly breathe.

Tonight, I keep my promise to him .. I live. I know this because I hurt inside. The best part about pain is that it tells you that you are still alive.

I don't have any ideas for tomorrow, not even what I am going to tell Me too about the fireflies. It is all connected somehow as part of this journey, the hardest one I have ever made.

I feel You

I feel you
move
within me
into places
I dare not go
You curl up
like a snake
tense
coiled
ready to strike
and the pressure
grows
intense
too tight
for me to even breathe
You spread my ribs
compress my lungs
You bruise the chambers
of my heart
until I want
to scream
and I place
my hand there
against my chest
just
to hold you tight
I close my eyes
I whisper
its ok
you can rest
here
tonight
~for him