It was still. Warmth spread over the grass and small insects played in the cooler air above the stream. A wisp of breeze would now and then disturb the top of the stalks and ease over my skin.I could hear nothing where I was. Caught in a small bubble of time and space where it was just me on the entire planet. Alone .. silent ... introspective. But it did not feel bad .. not lonely ... it felt right and I was relaxed.
I could hear everything where I was. Each tiny insect .. each stalk of grass as it rustled against another. The brush of a small white cloud as it passed over the Sky. The garrulous steam prattled on with superfluous conversation .. like chattering women. Nothing important .. nothing you felt you needed to pay attention to or comment on ... but nice to hear in the background.
Seveya arrived .. I heard her and knew her well before she came into sight. She was covered in blood .. rather attractive if I do say so. Not sure what that says about me.
She snuggled up to my right side. Did not ask. Just did. I kind of liked that. She was careful and respectful and .. just made herself comfortable. Which in turn ... made me comfortable. There was no tentative moves .. no shying ... no fear. There was no invasion .. no over stimulation ...she just eased up only so close and then settled. I never had a chance to feel it coming .. and when I realized it was there ... it was not so bad. Perhaps that is why Cana is so good at it .. she is used to dealing with beasts.
She asked me what I was thinking .. which of course scattered my thoughts like a flock of startled birds. Took me a while to gather them back together into any kind of understandable sequence. I wish I was not so defensive about such things .. I think my conversations and relationships would go much smoother. But I do not know how to change that. Or take down all the traps and snares I have laid over the years. They serve me well .. most of the time.
I tried to explain to her .. how I felt. How I felt out of touch with everyone. From the very small fact of not being able to ride .. the severity of my wounds ... it had all left me feeling disconnected and far away from my family and friends. I was coming back .. but it was slow. We spoke of my wounds .. because they were an obvious subject matter and seemed connected to most of my reality lately. I told her I did not fight in the Love Wars .. she guessed from there it had something to do with revenge. She surprised me .. her deductions were very well thought out and backed up with what she had fairly learned of me so far.
We spoke of when I was Ubar .. my shift in thoughts towards dwellers and their ways. My historic tolerance .. if not appreciation. Though that was indeed .. history. These days I was not so tolerant. These days I was not so ready to listen and glean. These days ... a good dweller was a dead one. And I seemed more than willing to give Fate and Destiny a helping hand in moving things along towards that end.
This hatred .. I could not explain completely. It is not an easy thing to admit .. intolerance and such raging hatred speaks of a fear ... a weakness of some kind. I do not deal so maturely with my own fears ... especially when I have no idea what it is exactly that fuels them. Perhaps I rage more out of my own impotence with understanding than I do out of any true feeling towards dwellers. But I can not answer that for sure .. not without the knowledge I need. Not without the knowledge that I tore apart and spread all over that alley between the merchant tents.
huh
I need to learn tolerance .. at least long enough to get a few answers. You would think with my training .. I would be better at that.
She asked me if I was relieved .. that I lived. I told her of course I was .. I have no wish to die. Thinking back on it now I suppose she might be referring to the other day when I said something out loud that was supposed to remain a thought in my head .. how I wished I had died like her brother had. But that is different. To never know .. what I know ... that would be a gift. But knowing ... I have no wish to cease. I breathe .. I live ... and I will never stop seeking my next breath. If only because I wish to throw it right back in the face of the Sky.
My irreverence knows no bounds.
She seemed relieved I .. wanted to live. She mentioned all the things she wanted to "do" yet .. "us" to do. I asked her .. what if there was no "us" ... what would she say? Would she still want me to live? Would she still want to talk to me. Where was her motive in who she was to me? Was she only here .. with me ... because she wanted me. Or was it more? Did she actually like me .. enough that it did not matter what our future held .. would she still talk to me because we shared something good and comfortable. I can not act as if my feelings are involved .. I barely have feelings ... and when I do I keep them rather locked up. The only feeling allowed any kind of rein is anger. And anger protects me. Anger is my friend .. anger was with me through it all and anger has given me the will and way to survive. Anger is my strongest ally. You can not get to me without making friends with it. It is my guardian .. my beast and I keep it well fed and strong.
But she committed herself .. completely. I asked her how she could do that ... it seemed an illogical risky business to me. I wanted to understand it .. and her. I wanted to know both the theory and how it connected to her personally. There is only one way I know to understand .. cut it open and examine it. Strip it of all its skin and see what makes it live and breathe and how all its functions are connected. I tried to explain to her that .. she had not tempted my anger yet ... not "that" anger. Anger helps me understand how I feel. It connects me to that little chest of emotions that I try so hard not to open. I told her .. she was so easy to talk to I did not know if I thought of her like my sister ... or something more. Women are not always easy for me to talk to .. I can count on one hand those who are. Cana being one of them. Was Seveya destined to be .. as Cana was? My friend and sometimes confidant? Or was that one of the pieces I needed to fit into the woman I would spend the rest of my life with? The ability to be a friend .. and more.
I think too much.
She said she hoped that I would at least kiss her before I came to that conclusion. I do not now where the motive was for saying that to me .. but it made me feel better. Her honestly is a little startling and I like it. It .. made me feel more comfortable with her. Talking to her. She was listening .. but not letting my own confusion cloud her brain too much. That is priceless ... to me. To have someone I can say most anything to and they do not overreact with the content .. but listen even when they do not like what I am proposing. Half the time I am not proposing anything solid .. just thoughts. Weighing things. Learning about them. Setting them all on a table and picking through them. Seveya seemed to have the ability to do that with me.
I asked her if she was going to be patient with me and quiet .. a good little girl ... while I tried to figure it all out. I was curious .. you see. Silken and Asria are quite content to wait for me to figure it out ... on the other side of the Harigga. Have they not seen me misplace people on a regular basis? They simply fall off the edge of the earth. Which of course is my fault. And I know this. I have enough hindsight to be able to calculate and deduct a few obvious things. There is a piece of me that appears to be missing. The peace that "knows" how I feel about a woman. The piece that would allow me to .. seek ... a woman. The piece that most women seem to assume I have and then get quietly disillusioned when I do not produce it. I am not in any hurry ... they seem to be on some kind of biological time clock and it ticks away in their ear louder than anything I seem to be able to convey to them. Do other men do this for them? Do they have this missing piece? Half the time I do not even realize I have dropped the bola mid swing until it is too late. The other half of the time I am rebelling against presumptions and assumptions because I am an arrogant egotistical irreverent asshole and as soon as someone tells me what I have to do I dig in my heels and prove that I do not. Stubborn. I am sure there are more adjectives ... I have heard a few less flattering ones.
She asked me how people could figure out what they wanted from me .. how they felt about me ... without me. I told her .. I was not sure. But they sure seemed to be able to. Obviously they learned enough in their cursory examination to .. know the best thing for them was to move on. How could I fault them for that? I had no desire to make a woman miserable. Well .. not in my right mind anyway. There were times ... but that was off subject.
I told her .. it was most likely my fault. She seemed surprised by this ... I explained that no woman wants to be in a relationship by themselves and ... so often that is how it felt when dealing with me. It takes me .. forever ... to get to the point where the work of a relationship even occurs to me and by then ... there is not much to work on. I told her .. I was not much of a partner in what I had experienced. I knew this ... chances wasted. Though a few of them .. broke the rules. Those I had not wasted .. those I had walked away from with the blade of unforgiveness still dripping with their blood. I may not always know what I want .. but I have a rather firm grasp on what I do not want.
She told me she was glad they were all gone .. the ones through the years. I had to chuckle .. her honesty again. Could she still feel that way when she experienced what I was talking about? Could she weather it? Could she see through it and pick up the belief and faith I was always dropping along the way? We spoke of T'zuri ... of her courageous standing in the face of the wind of my carelessness .. my lack of direction. I asked her if she was jealous.
She told me jealousy was a useless emotion. Well .. there are ways of looking at it and then there are ... ways. I can argue either point and I wanted to test her theory and see how well it held water. Did she know what she spoke of? Had she ever .. wanted ... really wanted something that someone else had. Had she ever known the fear of loss .. to the point of acting irrationally? If I only knew that this conversation was a painful portent of things to come. But I was an oblivious Spex .. as I usually am when it has to do with me. Unless I am predicting that a woman will move on without ever getting to know me despite their proclamations to the contrary. I nail that one dead center.
So I asked her .. if she would handle it so maturely ... side step the possibly dirty emotion of jealousy .. if I were to take another woman as a mate. It was theory .. I have no intentions ... no one is in that position with me. This is all about me seeking to understand how her feelings work .. define them in ways I can understand where they stop and where they end. Where they are mature and where they start acting like real feelings. I do not find feelings mature .. I find the rein of logic and rules to be mature. Feelings? Not so much.
She gave me a dance step .. told me we were talking about jealousy ... not heartache. So I stepped right with her and asked her to explain heartache and the difference. She told me that if I mated another woman it would mean that she made me happier and she would be heartbroken .. and at the same time be happy for me and my happiness. I .. asked her ... really?
So .. that meant she thought there was a woman out there that would make me happier than she could? Did she really believe that?
Danger
She told me she did not believe it there was a woman who could make me happier than she could.
Nice save.
Then she told me .. that if I took another woman as my mate it would not matter how she felt .. because I would all ready have her as .. my mate.
huh
Seveya is unwilling to play with me in the little sandbox of .. what if. I never got a chance to press her further because Cana arrived and the entire subject became much more generic .. rather than pointedly directed at Seveya. But .. I was aware she side stepped that one. I am not sure if she did it because she refuses to even think about it ..
...or if she does not like her own answers.
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