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.
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