For That Threat ...

Seveya and I seem to have found a comfortable level of communication. Which has not returned to the seriousness of the other day. It hovers around polite conversation and easy teasing. Much like Silken and I .. only with less experienced sexual give-and-take in words. I am careful with Seveya .. keeping it light .. I would not do anything to bring dishonor to the First Fires.

Also .. much like Silken ... I see much behind her eyes that remains unsaid. I do not know why this is. To both .. I have proved to be a trustworthy friend. Taking their words with seriousness and not betraying their confidence in me by throwing those words to others. Neither one of them will get to know me very well without ever allowing those thoughts and questions to come to light. And certainly without it .. I will not come to know them better than I do now.

I do not know why it is that most every woman who says to me .. I want to know you Fonce ... suddenly disappears. Perhaps it is that they were waiting for me to .. do ... something. As if that statement was a command .. a prelude to my response. A response that I am not aware I am supposed to have. I can accept that there is something on my part that is lacking. I just do not know what that is. Not that Seveya has disappeared .. but there is some anticipation of such. Some rather solidly learned assumption.

I am not sure how long I was there on the edge of the stream before I realized that someone was wandering around in the water looking for something. It took a moment to focus before I could place who it was. It was Seveya and I asked her what she was doing and how she got the scrape on her shoulder. Teased her about that as well. Come to think of it ... I teased her a lot that day. That girl .. almost ... has more smirks than I do lurking around the corners of her mouth. It amuses me. Those unborn dry smiles .. with sarcasm for a mother and quick-wit for a father.

The short .. as apposed to the long ... of it was that she had lost her paintbrush in a fall down the bank. It seemed important to her .. more important than just a tool. Something she felt a pang within to find and I offered to help. As I did so I got a little more information from her .. most important of which was that it would float. That is when I wondered aloud why we were searching the rocks. Perhaps she knew something I did not? Did not seem so .. I almost regretted the logic I displayed when I saw her wilt with the thought of it having bounced along the current down stream.

It is what tugged the memory of the old rotten log that had .. many years ago ... washed itself down stream from somewhere back upstream where trees grew and rain water rushed in great torrents off the hills .. gathering and exploding over the plains. I had not been down to that watering hole since we had been back in the South .. but it would be a good idea to do so. I told her I would look for her brush there .. as there was a good chance if it was anywhere .. it might be caught up in that old tree. It seemed to shock her that I would do such a thing for her. Why not? It was an easy task .. good on many levels ... and if it eased her mind even a little or gave her some much needed hope? Who was I not to grant such a thing? I did not have a lot of faith it would be there .. not big on that sort of faith ... but I have seen stranger things happen.

As I think about it now I can not quite remember though if it was her idea .. or mine.

huh

Typical woman.

I asked her about her shoulder. It was bleeding through her tunic. Good Sky .. what exactly is my reputation? Everything I said she blocked and defended ... just in case I meant something less ... or I should say more intense. As if I was going to ask her to take her clothes off right there in front of the Sky and everyone coming and going from the stream.

Ayguili would kill me. I suppose that should not be my only reason but .. it is a good enough one for now.

But the more she tried to put me in my place and remind me of my own honor the more amused with it all I became and the more irreverent. If she was paying attention that day she learned a lot about the man .. Fonce. She played a dangerous game .. not that she was in any physical danger. Like I said I had a damn good reason not to step over that line whether she did or not.

HA

Is that not the way of men? Is that not the thread of it all? Women are the possessions of men. Whether their fathers .. brothers .. mates ... guardians ... or simply the Ubar. There is no set rules .. there are unique opinions and ways of doing things. A woman .. can do anything that her guardian is big enough to back up for her. If he wants his mate to wear a short skirt that shows leg up to her ass? If he wants to unbraid her hair at the Main Fires? If he allows her to show enough cleavage there is nothing left to the imagination? Well if he is big and bad enough to back off the ideas of men that she stirs up? So be it. But he better have a set .. before he tries it. It does not reflect on anything but his grand ideas of his own presence ... it does not mean she is a slave. It means that is how he likes his woman and unless you want to deal with his grand idea of himself and test his strength .. you do not touch.

But I digress a little. My main point was that .. I have enough respect for Ayguili as a man and as my Ubar ... let alone as a skilled warrior .... that it would not matter if Seveya had stepped over the appropriate line ... which by the way she never did. But it would not have mattered if she had .. I still would not have done anything. Not because she might hurt me .. but because of my respect for her guardian. THAT is the way of men. Now it will not stop me from threatening her. There are times even I am not myself .. let alone other men who I can not speak for their respect of Ayguili. It is good that Seveya knows where the line is .. it only protects her more and also ... allows me to learn respect of her ... aside from my respect of the Ubar. I learn what kind of woman she is .. there is the dangerous part ... whether I can trust her to keep that line.

Which by the way .. she reminded me of time and time again. Which I also conveyed .. only made me worse.

But it was fun and light hearted teasing. My own inspired irreverence however made it impossible for me to be serious about anything .. including the very real and serious subject of the project I wanted her to attempt for me. There was this flicker of some kind of hope that perhaps .. this might work. But I never did get around to telling her about it. I kept falling off the trail of thought and teasing her mercilessly .. because she made it so amusing to do so. She even threatened me at one point with giving me a black eye. Which amused me even more .. she is a little short for that kind of threat.

But I did offer to get her a ladder.