Jade

Some of the topics that bantered around the fires began with objectivity and understanding then somewhere in there they veered off to the skies. I was pleased to be present to listen and learn so much and now and then be able to speak openly. It was the mannerisms and the aloofness that should have had everyone on full alert. I know I was. He wasn't in pain, he was the living breathing epitome of it. It was much like the shift of the wind before a storm. You could feel it coming if you paid attention.

A man's ego is often steeped in how he provides for others but his primary directive is his beliefs in himself .. it had been clear as day when it was spoken ... not a desire or want but a must .. in answering to himself and it was he who sets his own values and ethics. Want came in, in the desire to answer to a higher value than even wants and desires. Now how exactly do you mistake that? Jest does not cover telling a man that he lets down those around him in the pursuit of those values. I watched him rise, I watched as the anger in him rose until it flooded his fists and his eyes with fire. Insult added to the injury was telling him not to be overly dramatic and to lighten up. I am not sure which was more salt to already open wound. I was angry, intensely angry that anyone could speak of him openly, publicly in such a way and believe it could be taken as a joke. I rose to stand just behind him at his side.

There had been a time that I had not stood by him, as a woman, as a slave, or even as part of this tribe. My own inability to see him as who he was and what he stood for more than the titles that weighed his shoulders blinding me. My jaded judgements forming doubts, doubts that did not need to become one more pennyweight to an already burdensome counterbalance. I would never be able to bring that moment back but what I had learned lifted me now. Lifted me to my feet and cleared my voice to be able to speak even if they were to be my last words on this world. One small pale slave a paltry shift to the level. He was a good Ubar, a good leader ... one that does feel the needs of his people.

I'd already been dismissed and when he realized I was standing there sent me on my way. I don't think he nor anyone else heard me. He had told me once that there would be times I would not be able to fix or change , everything, something, anything .. that there were things in life that were beyond our control. What of the things I can? What of believing that .. belief can make a difference until it so painfully obvious that it will not that you have to lay the tenet down? I still believed in him whether his world around him including me understood who and what he was or not.

When I left, the air was pregnant with the incense of burning jade.