Manna and nectar

I'd sought one of the leather workers knowing that I had little to trade to replace what I'd destroyed. I knew the stuff I had was a time bomb waiting to detonate into more of the same crumbled heap that it had begun. That was going to happen eventually whether it was my inability to contain my temper or the animal's sheer strength and will against it. Her distractions were certainly inderstandable but I myself felt that I had failed to get her to understand how pivotal this situation was to me. I didn't need big, bigger, best. I needed functional and unfortunately, thanks to no one else but me, myself and I ... I needed it now. My frustrations were mounting into a ... well ... into a mountain.

Raven. Beautiful sweet, mud covered raven. It was her bubbly nature that touched into the growing melancholy that evening. She brought the smiles that kept me from sliding over an abyss of feeling miserable or at least she had a damn good hand hold of whatever she could get a damn good hand hold of, to keep me from plunging in a free fall. You know how she likes to cop a good feel whenever she can. No silly, not literally this time .. figuratively. Of all the enslaved women about the camp, she was the one that asked if I needed anything and it actually registered in my brain that she was asking if I needed anything. She couldn't curb my temper and she couldn't make me feel better about having broken part of a wild animal's spirit. She couldn't make the straps of leather magically re-adhere themselves together but she could do one simple something for me, send some water down to the pens. Just that. I didn't ask her to do it herself, she was a busy woman. She could have any slave of the entire harigga do it for her. Just see it done and somewhere on the inside I was saying ... please.

I wallowed in my self-pity and self-abuse for the next few ahns back at the pens, trying to burn the ache of muscles, the agony of my mind and the heavy weight of the entire day off. It was by no means working for me and by the time I slipped back through the fence rails to call it a day, I was a physical, mental and emotional wreck.

It was then I saw perhaps the most precious gift anyone could have given me at the moment. A special touch that wrenched at my insides enough to yank me up out of my doldrums. There on the post were a few botas and a bag of honeyed nuts. When I looked around, I could see the wiggle-waggle of pert bottom fading into the shadows back toward the camp and it made me smile.

So right there, perched on the top of the fence with manna and nectar offered by a goddess, I watched the day tuck itself beneath the covers and a kiss of moonlight to wish it sweet dreams.