Needlepoint

The evening's discussions had left me in an irrasible mood that was growing darker by the ehn. It was not so much the topics .. those of relationships .. The Tribe, Clans, Friendships, the talks of the special someone that becomes part of your life. These were simply the stories I had been gathering. These were the portraits of my people that were being sewn in my memory. I did learn from each of them more as a bonus than the purpose. It wasn't the people that moved in an out of the conversations picking up a thread to weave in or out.

Layers and layers had begun to form an understanding as we talked, an advancement to new levels that no longer needed explanation with the details defining textures. It had taken more than a season to come this far, and so many areas were still abstract or outline. The healer had long ago woven in her family and some of the accounts of things that had happened in the past. The weapon's Master had threaded in soft shades of the background that would in time connect the line of perspective. The kaiila handler had added the wonders of her family in pastels just as the Haruspex had lent the hues of mystery. Many ... so many had offered their bits to the tapestry. When Fonce and his new slave came to join, I was delighted. He was no longer just spectator in the gallery. His inquiries made him part of the portrait as a whole. The joys of the newly mated pair, became the threads that expanded the edges just as easily as his and another leather worker's sorrows did.

Words that one woman had spoken there swirled in it's vibrance .. something to consider, something to ponder more ...

When you realize that you can open yourself up completely and be accepted as you are good and bad, when you you see in another's eyes that look that says those things did not matter, that what another sees of you, feels about you is what matters ... in their eyes ... in their heart ... in their spirit.

I'd asked if the relationship between two individual people were not similar to what is felt of the Tribe itself as a whole ... the day to day relationships of those who clung to the old ways and those that embraced the new ways living together. It was at that point, that another of the women leapt into the middle, force feeding me the law of the Tuchuk as if I did not know these things. Already tired and irritable, her offering to prove her point by saying that it was only the Ubar's edict that prevented her from slapping me simply because it suited her, grated the edge of my nerves. It was one of those southern belle, "How nice" that I offered back .. Tuchuk style. If she did, it would make for an interesting evening of entertainment ... wouldn't it? She had made her point but I failed to see how any of that answered the question.

Something was needling me, not the topics, not the people, not even the debate ... it was something else. So later I asked those I felt comfortable speaking privately with. There was a very important weft thread that I needed to test and understand. Were the Tuchuk simply and only an arrogant, blood thirsty race of people? Wasn't there more? How did I and my quiet spoken ways fit into this world that I had even to this very moment felt with all my heart I belonged. In a world where many are so outspoken was there doubt among them of my own inner spirit and the depths of what I felt for my people?

It still wouldn't be until later ... after I had calmed my own blood thirsty urges that I would take what was told to me and form it into something more tangible that I could see, that I could feel was real. I had not been mistaken in all that I felt pride of for the Tuchuk. I was one of them ... the spirit was there, the strength to see it through was there and more ... that I had earned the trust and respect of many.

It wasn't just words.