Soul Mate

So many thoughts tumbled in my head of late, turning over and over like a broken record that I felt as if each spiral grew more twisted. Right now I didn't want to think anymore. When the posts were driven into the ground to create the kaiila pens, I was more than ready to help. It had been Master Ramza during the trail that had taught me to let those who know how to do, do what they knew how to do and help only where I knew how. So I listened for needs that I could be of help with. Holding supplies within easy reach, fetching a this or a that when it was needed or just getting out of the way now and then. It was the kind of work that drove away demons from your thoughts, muscle binding, mind numbing, sweat pouring, lets get this done labor.
By the time the kaiila were ready to cut into the pens, I was sitting on top of a rail with a water bota, letting the contents pour down over my face. The stampede of taloned claws tore into the grass and dirt sending it flying into the air like jets of water out the sides of a ski-doo. It was a magnificent sight to behold. Then I saw him. He was a fire breathing dragon with smoke pluming from his nostrils. Each line of muscle rippled beneath the velvet fur as the central fire bathed over his flank and legs. The trod of his claws shredded the ground as he wove back and forth until he finally reared his full height in defiance right in front of me. His shadow engulfed me as if I were an ant seen from a far away mountain top. I froze in place just watching it all.
The plummet of his forelegs barely missed snatching me off the rail though he was still fury in action. He pounced and reared over and over again, sending wisps of his mane splaying around him like a black halo. He stirred a passion inside the likes I had never known. When he stopped and stood still, he stared right into my soul. His breath blew searing hot against my face. His eyes seemed like glowing coals and in the liquid surface of one of them, I saw my own reflection. I had never wanted, coveted anything so deeply in my whole life .. not the animal .. his spirit. When he raised once more I could hear the handlers calling me from far away. To get down, to be careful, to get out of the way .. but as the beast spun and raced along the fencing, I was off the rail as well, running full out on the other side of the fence to keep up with him.
A massive arm clothes-lined my mid section taking the winded breath out of me at the same time this enchantment sprung and cleared the fence like he was a ballet dancer. I could only watch as he galloped into the distance. He was free .. at least for now but he had taken something of me with him. I buried my face into the chest of the Master, holding on as tight as I could, grasping at tidbits of my mind and soul that seemed to be fleeing in the wind. There was no time for dizzy little slaves or their fantasies and he wrenched me free just to toss me against the fence post but I never felt it.

Inner Woman

In the past few hands there had been a thread of topic that wove its way into conversations .. family. Although I was pleased that there was now true interest rather than the chiding taunts, it grew uncomfortable when the spotlight was turned to me. Cana and Aiyana had spoken with me a little of my mother. My responses were always warm and open when I spoke of her.

It was a slave that stumbled into the darkness that is reserved for my paternal seed donor. I admit I flared rather quickly. I do not remember much of him. I'd erased his presence from my thoughts as far back as my childhood. What glimpses I can recall I wished I could not. To me he was cruel, cold, demanding without having any emotional attachment. He drove people, he made their decisions for them without any heed to their own wants and desires. His only love was money, land, power. I had no wish to be like him so my life among the Tuchuk suits me well. There is more there than I will speak openly of, revelations that will not come easy and only with trust.

On the other hand, I had no wish to be like my mother either, a woman who lost herself in one man, she gave her all, serving him and his needs quietly, selflessly. I can picture her when I close my eyes, her beauty, the love and deep devotion she would offer in stolen moments. In so many ways she did not exist in more than a shadow. She became nothing because it was what she was to him.

How had the conversation turned to the descriptive differences of camp slaves and personally owned ones? Had my thoughts been so consumed with memories of my family that I missed a part? Perhaps it was about the need for coin now as a slave or rather not having any need of it. Maybe it had something to do with balance, regardless I listened to the definition of slave from another .. the loss of self, giving in totally to be found pleasing if only for one moment in time and seeking nothing further and on to self deprivation to enhance the intensity of the precious moment when something is offered.

I listened to the contrast of Mastery when one is owned by one and only one, only then would there be a wish to know what was within the heart, mind and soul of a slave and the interim to live only for the ihn, to change who or what one is to please one's Master. All the while I was shaking my head. These were many of the things that were part of my training in the cities, but it was so alien to me in many ways. Perhaps it is because I had benefit of different slavers, that my personality was allowed me to a degree. It may be that my own will and spirit are so strongly rooted that it could not be burnt away so easily. I do not mean it to sound as if I believe these things are wrong nor do I believe in my believing differently is necessarily right. Afterall, I am no longer a personal slave.

I can only offer from my own experiences here on the plains. Yes, it was in part the beauty of the elegant serves that brought a bit of notice and too, the absolute adherence to obedience though it was not until I broke from within the confines of that training to stand and speak openly, spiritedly that gained one man's attention enough to place a band of leather on my throat. I told her that it was a wise man that set my path forward. I have never forgotten his words ... One was to live. I may have taken that literally but each day I do. I take care of myself, to ensure that I am healthy. I will snitch a piece of meat from a pot or indulge in a sip of blackwine to ward off a chill. I live not only for every breath that defies morbidity but to snatch as much of the day out as I possibly can ... to see, to feel, to taste everything there is to experience, to be able to offer back as much of the richness that I can hoard into a bounty. I do this because it is my interpretation of what he asked of me.

The Second was to not lose myself. Now there is the fuse that lit the dynamite. It is so easy to lose oneself in the charisma, the vitality of such a virile man. Easy enough that I had felt my own grasp failing me at times. It was not a mere battle of wills to stand on my beliefs but an inner struggle as well. I learn every day more of who I am inside, strengthening her and bringing out her attributes. I stumble, I fall, I pick myself back up and go on with determination but I stand and face the world on my own.

Am I any different, truly, than the description that was offered of a slave, regardless if it is a camp slave or one personally owned? I am still his in my heart, his and his alone. I will always be. My love for him doesn't fade or diminish because I am no longer at his feet. He is a man of magic, a man of ferocity, a man capable of ...

I will learn to thrive here as the woman I am within or I will die holding dear to my promises. I will learn to be strong. Strong enough not to fear even the darkness maybe one day finding it welcoming. I want to see the south again not because it holds any fondness in my heart but it is a passing of time. I want to return to the north here over and over again to investigate all that it has in store. I want to carve out my lot in this life, not just this ihn but ... all of my tomorrows. In the mean time I serve the Tuchuk as a whole ... as me. I will sink my teeth in and bite off a future among the tribe as a woman who loves a man deeply, deeply enough to live for him and not lose herself in doing so. My last breath is not my own anymore ... he has yet to take it and this time I dare fate to try and take what is his.

Contemplation

AN UNCONSCIOUS THEREAFTER
Once upon a time surely far from here beyond an eery fog near an uncertain fear knelt a clue searching for a spire unwinding within some muck and mire where we find ourselves entangled within confusion searching for answers or perhaps transfusion a sort of morphine drip that knows our name or what we once looked like on some descending plane where we once were or hoped to to be perhaps in a time of uninvolved inquiry between what might have been or will never be ...... there lies the rub an itch or a snub ... ruba dub dub or maybe a thought to assign never sought within an image blind blurred as it never once occurred where this might lead following behind subserviantly indeed into some void where we are encased annoyed enraptured and captured by an afterthought in fact precariously caught and intertwined by an ever expanding calculated design that leads slowly and impatiently to nowhere fast where we often find ourselves taken aback or aghast wondering was it worth this dissension or plight despite all the needless apprehension now subdued near a place not far from here cantankerously imbued with a clinging fear still cleverly disguised while poking us deeply within our outstretched eyes pulling in sights we never believed true in hopes of deriving a room without such a view from which we find ourselves now endlessly deceived longing for an unconsious there after finally relieved
James A Galgano

Snow White

when we leave this world behind
the magic of the night
leads the naked and the blind
to the other side
of a dreamer's golden mind
and forevers burn so bright
turn around and you will find
another shinin' light
down on senseless avenue
all your fantasies come true
welcome home, my chosen few
when your hot gets a little cold
when your young gets a little old
lost souls will be found again
- subway angel's caravan

I can't remember who won the original bet as to how long I would last among the tribe. I don't think anyone thought it would be this long. Later in my life I would look back on all the things that had happened up through this first move and much of it will not be so important, some of it will be etched there for my lifetime. I didn't get to see Tooria and strut past it arrogantly but somewhere in my heart I knew they knew we had passed their gates and trembled. They had good reason to. It wasn't exactly a land of bosk and honey but it sure felt that way inside.

I wandered back among the first wagons amid dustings of snowflakes, cold, weary, with a few scratches and a new set of stripes on my back. It was made clear by Master Duran that even though my efforts to help had been beneficial, there was consequence for being so outspoken. I'd accepted them as graciously as I could but he had spared no mercy in the offering. The shawl I was allowed to keep as well as an invitation to return when not needed elsewhere.

I returned with more. There were two dung sacks apiece that had been collected from among all of the outer wagons that was sent to the Ubar and the kaiila Mistress for the repairs and for allowing me to work among the outer wagons. Another girl ... Rita, helped me drag them through the mire. She said I was welcome to visit with her as long as I didn't plan on being such a bossy bitch next time. I had to laugh when I told her I would only bark orders if the sky begins pouring dirt on our heads and then trying to wash it off with a river. She said that was fair enough.

I returned too with news of a couple, Gideon and Ula, that had interest in Me Too. They had lost a child during a move about 6 envars ago and had empty spots in two big hearts that was big enough for a precocious young warrior.They didn't need a slave though not even a free one. I would simply offer the knowledge to Master Rook and Mistress Cana without interfering or trying to do it my way. Wondering what would they do with me worried the inner part of my lip between my teeth a little.

While we walked with the sacks nipping at our heels, I told the girl a story that didn't make any sense to her but it struck home a lot of things for me. It was about two Ubars far away and long ago. They had called truce to an ancient war between their tribes. When one gave the other a gift of 20 mounts, the other had offered his own to ride back. It was what the second had said that kept running through my head ... The walk home is part of the gift.

I was humming this silly song as I neared the inner circle .. Hi ho .. hi ho ...

Virga

I cant stop the rain from falling
Do what you must do
I can only hope to share
The pain I gave to you
We can climb to another world
If we never look down
We can join in the avalanche
And be thrown to the ground


The outer wagons had taken more of the brunt of the storm than those of the inner circles. Thankfully, there had not been a lot of major damages but there was more than enough accumulative minor damages. Without a wealth of stockpiles, these people lived within what they possessed so any loss was still a major one to them. Falon had understood this when she sent the furs before the move. She had known they would be needed at some point. I kept expecting her to come check on everyone and the fact she hadn't yet tugged at something. I missed her and looked up to find a particular cluster of little stars in the sky, glad I couldn't see anything.

I was hanging off the frame of a wagon, holding up pegs for a Master to nail a rib back into place when the rains came. That first big droplet hit with a big splash that felt like a magnolia pod grenade exploding on top my head. The deluge didn't seem to phase anyone here, just tucking their heads in defiance of it and continuing to work. Between the stinging pelts of hard rain, a Man's low baritone voice began to sing. It was a song of pain and loneliness that somehow didn't make you feel sad but gave you hope or maybe make you want to make everything just a little better.

Those that had been separated from their families had begun filtering through the lines, in fragile calls that sounded as half afraid of not finding them as they were half afraid they would. One tiny little boy was sitting alone in the dust, slapping both hands at it as if it were water to splash. Now and then he would look up, searching with a heartbreaking lost look and as the little crater filled with water he found a glee in the resulting mud pies. When the Master had no more need of me, I bounded off the wagon to scoop the boy up onto my hip. Pat, pat, pat, the little hands made teeny hand prints of mud on my shoulder as if I were a canvas meant just for his art.

It seemed as if it had been three forever's since I'd seen anyone of the first wagons. It wasn't that I didn't think of them. It was quite the opposite, they filled every thought. I could feel Fonce in a way I still could not explain. He surged through my veins, scalding his way through every step of my life. He was my joy and my sorrow and everything in between. I was beginning to trust that he was there, he was alright, he was busy living, surviving, taking care of others. I didn't have to see him to know it, I could feel him. I think that it would not matter now if I were right there at his boots or half a universe away.

Cana was made of stronger stuff than most. It wasn't as if I felt she was unbreakable but I knew she would find a way to make everything around her ... alright. If there was ever a model of womanhood, she was the one person I most wanted to emulate. Tarra was like Fonce in a way, I could still feel her, feel the smile beneath the sadness and sorrows. I don't know if it makes any sense but it is like rubbing your toes together under layers of quilts, it's already warm under there but it just adds a little more. The girls .. well the other girls I knew had hearts to serve and they would give their last breath to. Thinking of them put this little smile on my face.

When I looked back down into that little face I studied it for a long time. I tried to see the face of the Manchild written in his features and I couldn't. Feeling the softness of a shawl cover my shoulders, I could offer an appreciative smile to whoever it was that gave it then drew it around the boy, snuggly. It wasn't long before the child's mother came running toward me to relieve the little package from my arms. She held him close, dotting his face all over with kisses and tucked him inside her own cloak. I watched them for a long time after they disappeared into the rain.

Wasn't this all what I had wanted when I came here, to give them my eyes and have them see their world imprinted in them, the joys, the sorrows, the challenges and the triumphs? Why then did I feel as if the rain were my own tears ... torrents of them except that somewhere between where they began to fall and where they would splash and puddle they seemed to just ... evaporate?

Ormr

I close my eyes
Only for a moment, then the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind

The creature that emerged from the cocoon was not delicate, fluttery or feathered. The canvas had abraded the surface of my skin until it wept crimson from head to toe. In the darkness it looked black as the night sky itself, oozing, raw. Dust encrusted larynx could only bark in rasps.

"Find every bota, waterfilled or otherwise, clear the rain barrels, begin gathering everything drinkable." I didn't recognize my own voice even as I heard it snapping at those around me. Heirachy had no place here at the moment. Egos could be suckled later, elsewhere. Just do what needed to be done now.

The closest experience I'd known was a tornado when I was young .. coming back from camp. This quiet in the splintered aftermath ... was it merely the eye? There was no time to waste. I descended on Pop tart, silencing the high pitched wailing with a resounding slap that sent cracked echoes through everyone near by. Then put her in charge of folding the canvas, in fact she was to keep other slaves calm and find things for them to do. Save anything usable. Water first, meat, and canvas. Catching the arm of someone that was passing by, they were told to find cloth. Find a place in a wagon and pile anything that could be used for bandaging, that could be used for makeshift clothing. Another told to salvage furs.

The men had already swarmed in to make repairs to the wagons themselves. A hand caught my own arm to send me beneath the axle of a wagon. The salt from a sweaty hand searing into the exposed flesh, gnashed my teeth together. There was no time for pity to lace what needed to be done, not theirs, not mine. There was too much to be seen to. With adrenaline surged strengths they would lift the side of the wagons, the women would roll a wheel back into place and I like many other of the smaller slaves would creep beneath the slanted bottoms to slide pins into place. I was just one among many hundreds there ... all transformed the same ... we were survivors. We worked together as one. One creature ... a chimera.

Shroud

It was warm and snug and so dark. I felt him nestle into me, rest his hand on my hip to pull me closer. Pressing my face into that sweet curve of his back, inhaling the richness of his hair, this place I long so for again. His hair loose, spreading, covering my face, tickling my nostrils slipping down my throat, strangling, choking me. My own hand slipping into his, curling my fingers to twine, the grasp so strong, so firm, hurting, crushing tight.

Wrapped in your arms where its peaceful, back in your arms where I'm happy. Gloria!

Stay with me.

Sweet peaceful sleep overtaking me in my precious cocoon. Yes, I could stay here forever ... forever ... forever ... with you.

Michael row your boat ashore, hallelujah.

A chorus of young voices in unity echoing within the yellow wagon. I'd been lost in thought's of a tree house far away, staring at the horizon through a slip down window. Dusky blues emerging with purple, racing, swirling, forming. I was the first to see it. Why did I sit there watching for so long? Conical gyrations in a finger point dip. Pointing .. pointing straight at us.

Stay with me.

Follow the yellow brick road to the total eclipse of the sun. So sad it passed us by, maybe because we were singing .. singing

Chills the body but not the soul, hallelujah

We were returning from camp one day in the merry merry month of May and I was taken by surprise by ... Cracking, splintering ... wooden thoughts.

Auntie Em Auntie Em We aren't in Kansas anymore!

It isn't a magic school bus ride oh yeah ... oh yeah
Click the heels of your ruby slippers and chant there's no place like home.

Stay with me.

Ruby in the sky with diamonds. Ruby in the sky with ripping, shredding to reveal a glimmer of light. Light flooding, filling in caustic intensity. Escape the moon, escape the cocoon, escape the womb.

I'm here. I'm alive. I'm radio ... radio ... radioactive.

Parchment wings unfold, shattered, tattered so cold, so cold.

Freedom's just another word for nothing else to loose, you ain't nothing ... nothing to me. Feeling good is easy Lawd when baby sang the blues and feeling good was good enough for ... gasping for breath.

Someone was cutting me free.

Blown Away

"The way that first breath upon your nose stings and makes you see stars upon your eyes when you do, and then that first rise of steam but not from your bowl of blackwine, but your breath meeting the air" ... That had been Falon's description of snow. We were so eager to see it, to feel it ... not sand, not a blizzard of dust and dirt. Not this.

When the winds began to rise, I saw the boys safely into the wagons and battened down like little rations on a saddle pack. I was about to begin searching for Cana when a rider came to tell me I was needed farther out. Someone had been hurt. I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck rising. I didn't know where Falon was. All I had was a small pack. One turned out to be several and several turned out to be more.

I was not equipped for this ... for any of this. I didn't wait for them to come to me. As soon as one would be settled in I would step back out to help another. My mind just went numb and the faces became a blur, the wounds came and went beneath my hands. At times I had to hold one hand clutched to a wheel or the rail of a platform just to get from one place to the next, from one wagon to next. The ahns stretched into a sandpaper eternity.

"Get them into a wagon ... it doesn't matter whos ... just get them safe." Those words half silenced as a cover shredded from its moorings ... ripped from one of the nearby homes. As it sailed through the air toward me I remember thinking it looked like a used klennex. The slow motion surreality sped into fast forward when it draped over my chest, my eyes, paralyzing my arms and legs. I was sheathed like a mummy, tumbling end over end, rolling, spinning, blown away until the side of a wagon stopped the spiral.

Pull it gently and it won't hurt

If you feel like you're alone,
know, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life,
the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much
of this life to hang on.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts sometimes.
So, hold on, hold on.
Everybody hurts.
You are not alone.
~R.E.M.





It was during one of those quiet talks where I could see the fatigue beginning to wear on the healer's shoulders not just her eyes that she sent me off to her wagon for a medical pouch. The instructions had been to remove all but the basic contents. It would be how I could help. My little swatch added among the others. While another of the Healer's Clan was away, I could see to the smaller scrapes and scratches. It gave me a warm feeling inside .. an honor to be able to aid the woman ... to give.

She offered advice on how to approach the patients as a slave so that there were no misunderstandings, no hurt prides, no hurt egos, no getting under foot and maybe this time no sailing bell across the trail. It was still a good catch.

Ok now all the little boys and maybe bigger ones too had to watch out ... I was armed. So maybe it was just antiseptics and bandages. They were not yellow snoopy ones but I could draw smiley faces on some of them.

Windows

Color my world Draw on my heart
Take a picture of what you think
love looks like in your imagination
Write on my soul Everything you know
Use every word you've ever heard
To color my world
~West Life

Patches

Come wet a widow's eye
Cover the night with your love
Dry the rain from my beaten face
Drink the wine the red sweet taste of mine
Come cover me with you
For the thrill till you will take me in
Come comfort me in you ...
For me For you
Time devours passion's beauty
With me With you
~Come Cover Me

I've been carrying around this little swatch of fabric for a while now. It's yellow paisley with orange and red floral swirls on it. I could turn it over and over but I had no idea what to make with it. Insiration hadn't burned any new bright ideas in my head. For once I left it in the wagon next to Me too after a rousing night of 'why is' before he fell asleep. I crept from beneath the flap backwards and checked one last time before heading to the fires.

The long nights and early mornings had begun to take its toll on me but I could see it etched on the faces gathered there as well. Lines on the Mistresses' faces stirred that want to fix everything and make it all better part of me. They spoke of others with a caring worry that shaded the evening with a warmth. I've learned that their hearts are as big as the harriga is wide and it encompasses all.

The topic of Noodle's hair helped lighten the mood ... turn it from blue to a rosy pink. I haven't been around the fires much of late so this was news to me ... the new color thing. A master had coughed up a bottle of blue dye to return it to its original splendor. The women liked blue ... just the way she was but who would be the one to see to bringing back that luster was up for debate. In the meantime, the bottle had mysteriously disappeared.

Here goes one of my brilliant ideas into action, not on hairstyling 101, I liked the girl for a million different reasons, not because of her hair. My idea was to offer the little piece of fabric I had to patch the Mistress' pocket where the bottle had somehow fallen through. I was beginning to understand I can't always fix things but there were still ways to be of help. It may not be needed but like the little swatch it was there if anyone ever did. Enough little swatches given by all made a quilt or something like Joseph's coat, colorful, beautiful, useful.

After everyone else had turned in for the night, it was the kaiila Mistress that still watched over the camp, keeping the fire fed with little chips. The conversation began about some nut and honey layered pastries I'd made. They had been thrown together quickly over a fire and were by no means pretty. I wasn't even sure if they were edible but it all spun new plans for the future. Funny how that happens sometimes. We spoke of how he liked honey and maybe when I made more she could take some to him. Just not tell him I made them.

You love him don't you? Right to the core of things. What was there to say? She understood the silent nod. We spoke of how I came to her family and why, how I kept my distance now not because it made anything easier for me but that I didn't want to add any more pain or hurt.

It cut deep to hear her say that perhaps the boy was my destiny. It was not the destiny that I wanted, would I accept the responsibilities I'd been given .. yes. But don't tell me it is my destiny. Destiny ... that word makes my teeth grit together now. Fate, Destiny, the skies .. call it what you will but I have no fondness for its insertion of it's will over ours. I may be the kettle calling the pot black for my own slipshod patch job.

I was worried however, about watching over him. Could I manage to hurt him too? What if I made some big miserable mistake and it caused him pain? She tried to put away my fears by saying she thought I was the best thing that had ever happened to the boy. That in the walled cities, they had nannies .. someone that looked after the children, that it sounded like what was doing.

When the topic turned again, I already knew that there had been a little red headed waif addition around the wagons. It was hard not to notice when a Master .. even one only wagon wheel tall appraises you like a ripe tomato. She mentioned he would be there with us for a little while. I knew and I understood. I'd heard. It was another part of the concern that lined the women's faces ... another that they loved and cared for.

We were all little patches woven together.

Caught on the crossfire

Remember when you were young,
you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger,
you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon,
you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver,
you seer of visions, come on you painter,
you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

The day had started off with one of the new slaves making some Lisa Douglas blackwine that dulled a sharp knife trying to cut a piece off. It was the kind you chew rather than sip. The rest I don't think had anything to do with being wired for sound ... I ... didn't drink any of it.

I had to race back to brew a new kettle full that didn't make the healer jitter so bad she shook off her saddle. We talked. We talk openly as several of the women allow me to. They watch me or perhaps it is best said they watch over me. Which is a bit odd at times since they keep telling me I am a slave as if I don't already know that. My thighs may still be satin smooth and free of any marks but I am clad kajir, my throat bears the ring of steel and I offer ... well all that I offer ... on my knees but each day I am reminded none the less. Still they probe and prod and push things inside like turning the soil, adding fertilizer so a seed will sprout and reach for the sky.

Falon was doing that while we walked. She wanted to know what was on my mind. She picked a hell of a day to ask. I'd woke up ravenous, not for food but to sink my teeth into ... vivid, bite off a nice hunk and chew on it. I read off the thoughts like it was a recipe ... There was a dollop of sadness, half cup of sorrow and pain, three handfuls of joy and enthusiasm, stir in lots of new friends and maybe a nemesis or two to taste. I suppose beneath it all there was just a hunger for ... more. Though that last word was held apart so it had a different meaning than its context.

The ride from the day before came up and I told her it had awakened something inside me, something I thought maybe I had lost, something vital but maybe it was just misplaced. Her answer ... 'tucked away forgotten until that one moment that sprung the doors wide and let out that which you put away for so long' received a hissed yes as my reply.

More what ...? Excitement? Adventure? I took a long breath before I told her ... 'everything'. We had to laugh as we spoke the same thing at the same time ... that want to feel more, see more, touch more, to express more. Mediocrity had no flavor now and I had to glance at her to see if I had overstepped my bounds. The reassuring look said there was nothing wrong with saying it .. she said I was of the ground, the grasses, the skies and the very breath of the bosk. She told me she felt like there were two types of slaves here ... you have slaves of the Tuchuks, and you have Tuchuk slaves. I was one of the latter. Oooh, stroke my ego a little will ya?

I was more free than I had ever been. It was a freedom that began long ago next to his wagon. Now before all of the Gorean rules and regulations thumpers go jumping up on the soapbox ... let me say that everyone that is human is slave to something, something they give control over them ... it may be thumping rules and regulations, their creator, a Master or dominant, maybe just their blackwine every morning. Maybe it is the fierceness of remaining in control they lose control within. He had begun to build a free woman .. or setting her free, one that had no fears, allowed nothing that would prevent her from being who she was inside. That was what I had lost along the way, that vitality of being .. me and the woman I was within. Now I was sinking my teeth in and pulling off a healthy bite. I was far from finished but the first true taste of freedom was sublime. Hey don't blame me ... he started it.

I was loving every moment of walking among the tribe as a woman free of fears, steeped in the passions of being a Tuchuk woman ... until ... she began working on that wound again. I tried so hard not to let it show how ripped apart inside I felt. I knew it was infected. She knows too. She spoke it openly how she could see everything that was painted on my heart, brimming behind my eyes, how my soul screamed it.

How gentle and soothing her words when she advised me to begin making sense of it all, to pick up the pieces and put them back together, to look at him again and see if there was anything left to salvage. She reminded me that I had said he was worth ... everything to me.
It was from inside that rawness that I cried out ... I was not nothing, I was not one that life will smudge in the dust beneath a heel and merely crumble. Skies, if she didn't let out her own war whoop and yell that's what she wanted to hear. She was going to clasp my hand and drag me with her.

It was a good day but I felt caught on the crossfire. There was still no inner calm, no release of the healing tears. They didn't feel like they were mine to cry ... they were another's pain, another's hurt and I mourned them deeply.