Friendship ... And Opinions Like Assholes

I was coming back from the stream .. where I had been trying to clear my head of the bits and pieces of the dream. I was stripped to the waist and working the water from the length of my hair as I arrived back at my fires. How odd it is to spend so much time there again. I feel almost normal. Like others .. where the main fire is not exactly home ... but a place to visit. For me of late it has been my only social connection .. now ... there is something of mine again to bring me ... home.

T'zuri was messing around with the fire .. stirring the coals. When she saw me her face lit up like spark in the night. She ran to me and I chuckled .. shaking my wet hair all over her as I caught her up in my arms.

Jaella is a quiet sort .. since my brief talk with her at the fires I have kept my eye on her a little. She asked if I was busy .. I told her if I was busy she probably would not have found me. When T'zuri realized Jaella was there she turned into a wild larl cub in my arms. Jaella said she hoped she was not disturbing me. I told her I doubt she could .. good Sky the woman was wearing my patience down though in her attempts to assure me she did not want to interrupt. Women.

She took a doll made from leather from her basket and told me she wanted to give it to T'zuri. Now .. something very dangerous glinted in my gaze for a moment. Something that surfaced and passed quickly .. but I asked Jaella ... had T'zuri changed so much then?

She answered me that yes .. she had. She was happier .. and that was a marked improvement. I told her I did not think she had changed at all. She lifted her brows at me and asked me .. had I not noticed the glow in her eyes? The bounce in her step? I told her .. they were there before.

Jaella said she did not think so .. I replied ... then perhaps I have simply given her the freedom to show it to you instead of only to me.

She finally spoke to T'zuri .. to give her the doll.

I can say that T'zuri took the initiative to try to make Jaella more comfortable and it seemed to work .. the two of them started talking like humans again before I left.

I hear Jaella and T'zuri were friends before T'zuri submitted to me. I have some ideas about friendship that seem to transcend people's ideas around here. Perhaps I think too much outside the box for them .. or perhaps I have just not had enough friends in my life that I can toss even one away due to circumstance. Since when does a man have a more fierce understanding of friendship than women? I thought they were good at this shit. I am beginning to think that they are not so much. At least around here.

Friendship transcends circumstance. Has nothing to do with slavery or freedom or Tuchuk or the plains or even this world. Not a damn thing at all. You see .. I think friendship is a lot like love. What I want to believe love is anyway. I can say with all my courage and honor and strength of will that there is no circumstance .. no deed I am forced to do that will ever shadow my friendships.

But then I am terribly ferocious when it comes to things that are mine .. things that touch me ... things that I value. That is in every pore of my skin .. in ever cell of my body ... in every spark of synapse it is threaded through every thought. I do not have many things that I am allowed to feel that way over .. so when I do ... it does not pale or dim with time or circumstance. Sometimes that kind of horrific intent to possess can hurt .. damage even ... but when it comes to people that I care for there is only one that can change that focused power ... the person themselves. Should they decline it .. it is no more.

I hope that the bud of friendship between Jaella and T'zuri has not been frozen by circumstance. I hope they come to understand friendship more like I do than others have shown. I hope I have provided that bridge to help them understand it a little better. I hope people realize they do not want to tempt the monster I am by threatening what is mine ... in any way.