Change_ling

The intensity of all the changes was immediately evident the next morning at the fires. As I approached, I knew I had to begin making decisions on my own, even the smallest of ones. I could not simply settle at his feet and wait for his beck and call. Where should I sit? Close to where he was? Across the fires where I had seen other prospects go? Turn around and haul my butt as quick as I could back to where I came from .. well I couldn't do that. That was a one way ticket through a door that led me over and over again right back ... here. There was no going back, not to being slave, not leaving my beloved plains, no ... back to the comforting feel of my tree house. There was only forward, to wherever it was I was so hell bent on going. I chose a spot on the steps of a wagon. Whose, I don't even have a clue.

The conversations with the stranger across the fires was tentative to say the least. Talk was of trivial things that filled the silences. As much as it felt like a knife slicing through me to see one of the new slaves absorbing the warmth of leather, she was a welcomed distraction of his focus. That does not mean that something in me didn't wanted to rip the throat right out of the smart mouthed hith slithering over his boot when she made crude reference to my rise from the kneelers clan to glory. In a way too, I felt a loving lingering stroke through the fur. The growling rumble of a warning did not come from me but from him. He did not defend the changes in me but called attention to the fact that she had said all of this in his space not mine. He was laughing to himself as he watched me.

So many intermingled emotions rose just beneath the surface as Falon arrived. Would the friendship we have, survive the rise off my knees to stand next to her? Would she welcome me as a peer? She greeted me with open arms and the one word that held more healing than any contents of the vast jars on her shelves ... Sister. I knew the meaning behind it, more than blood, more than flesh, a piece of the heart ... kindred. I melted into her arms. 'What, did you think we'd string you up and beat you till you decided to return to what "other" wanted of you?'

'What do you need?' Skies ... need??

I had no idea. I ticked off a list of what had been given to me. I didn't like the feel of charity but I did understand the love that was behind each of the gifts. Would they understand I wanted to earn my way honestly? The jitter of my nerves, the deep down desire to want to do well, not embarrass the man that had set me free on more levels than what the eye could see. I don't like change even if it is for the good. I liked my "things" to be right as I left them even if I didn't know where they were and had to go on some bizarre journey looking for where it was I last put them and new "things" meant finding a place to put them? The skies had breezed in and blown everything into one huge pile in the middle that took all of my focus to sort through. It had set my stomach in turmoiled flutters that at some points became so intense I could not focus on what was around me.

Next thing I knew Falon was getting intense with one of the slaves, noodle to be precise. It took a few moments to cut through the boil of acid to realize they were talking about Mayala. The woman had not been at her wagon for days. I had a few encounters with her that had left me so totally confused, I wasn't sure how I felt about her. Love her, hate her, feel deep empathy for her plight or begin speaking in tongues to exorcise the demons, she was Tribe and concern was real and tangible for her well being.

I watched the circle around the fires from two sides of the reins, knowing now what could be seen through the eyes of free and slave alike. Doing so felt like a fog holding me silenced, gagged by something unnameable, keeping me mute.

It was the serpentine bundle of flesh that I sent off to bring me a bowl of blackwine. Unless you know the true feel of containment, you will not understand the full extent of yearning for what you had been denied. I wanted that brew to be laden with everything that could be put in the steaming drink. So hot that it singed, so strong that it curled my tongue, so tainted that it was an assault to my taste buds. I didn't want it offered from blue, sweet creature so withholding of her own beauty and inner strengths that she believes herself invisible. No matter how much the girl meant to me, I wanted it offered from the fiery Tuchuk wench that had brought up the changes I was experiencing with such detachment. I wanted her to offer it from within that brazenness .. into 'my' space. I savored the taste of it all. In that one moment I didn't feel the overwhelming pressures of this new path. I didn't feel the overshadowing prospect of being a prospect. It felt so good that I could feel the leather of my dress have to expand to contain the razor peaks.

It was from inside the dangerous sphinx-like calm that it all seemed to bring, that I watched Fonce' reactions to Sahli. From the excited gleam of his new friend arriving to the wide eyed boyish curiosity and petulance over a new toy all the way to the burning jealousy that sparked behind his eyes. He was a palette of emotions. Even as he stormed from the fires in his impatience to find the man after having just sent him on the errand in the first place in a spew of oaths, it was delightful to watch. Even more amusing that the two passed among the rows without ever finding each other.

Sahli was to make a kite. Such a simple thing. Falon and I could help him make his own later but for now the whole world hinged on this one small moment. I sent blue off to my wagon for the ball of string. The same one that had unraveled over the top of Fonce' boot so long ago. But it dawned on me I had used that personal possessive pronoun and it felt strange, odd. That thought tangled up however when she ended up bringing back the whole basket instead of just the twine. I would have to make a stop back by the wagon to put it away before heading to the pens. The drummer did stop me in my tracks as he bid me farewell. He was the only person that did not trip all over my name. His hesitance was only in giving it punctuation, accent .... meaning. There was deeper respect forming for the young man that often reminded me so much of Me Too.

On the way back through the rows of wagons, I bent with the basket tucked at my hip to line up stray shoes back on the old woman's platform. They were helter skelter in, around and about the alley where she had thrown them at me over time. Now I put them all back where they belonged, tucking them in with a loving little pet of my fingers.