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.