The Real Seveya

“Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

I know what it is like when you get .. "down in it". When you are lost in the murky depths and you do not know which way is up .. or which way is down. And you are afraid to move without knowing if you are working your way back up to the top or if you are just digging yourself even deeper. I know what it is like to have it riding you like a ribboned black specter that hovers over you like a shroud .. enveloping you from time to time in ink bleeding wings that suffocate and soothe you into a dreamless sleep.

I have seen people who have succumbed to it. They are no longer .. real. As if they are some echo .. a shadow of who they were before. A facsimile that is nothing more than an empty shell. Perfect upon the outside but .. hallow and vacant within.

I have seen something like that haunting Seveya. I do not know what it is or why it is there .. it is just a haze to me .. I see the reflection of it in her eyes but I have not faced it eye to eye myself yet. There is a certain recognition within me .. a piece giving a nod in passing.

That night I was at the stream. Seeking the soothing of the water that lulled my senses. There is a difference in appreciating an element .. and mainlining it.

When Seveya rode up on her kaiila .. the beast feeling the haunting ... she was fresh from it. I could smell it on her. It drifted in the night around her in ebon tendrils that pulled in any light from the darkness .. and swallowed it. She was spoiling for a fight .. anything to give her something to put her hands on ... a problem she could solve. Even if she had to create the problem first .. she was more than willing to go about doing that. Her mood was a little desperate .. a little dark ... and a lot aggressive. The kaiila prowled up and down the bank across from me .. driven by her mood ... restless and nervous. The beasts know it when we harbor those things .. the recognize it even easier and quicker than we do.

She stormed her conversation with me like she would if she was trying to take all nine gates of Turia. I started getting irritated. I did not understand the questions she asked .. she asked them like she was fevered and not thinking strait. I started to get the idea she was accusing me of things ... things I was not even clear on. But the flavor of it began to fan the coals of my own temper ... which is always there waiting and watching for just such a thing. Her attitude was like a perfume and it awakened my own beast .. or started to. A stirring .. a lifting of nostrils to the air to attempt to get the scent. There must have been something in my tone .. some sign of what was stirring because she stopped .. stopped and came stomping through the shallow part of the stream to deposit herself on the bank next to me.

That amused me. It was either incredibly brave .. or bordering on self destruction ... to approach me at that point .. but I welcomed her and asked her if she actually came to talk. I told her I liked talking to her .. as apposed to being laid siege to.

She asked me if she was out of line earlier .. at the fires when she was attempting to invade my personal space and mend my hands. I told her no .. I had been called away. I had not left angry. I tried to explain to her about my personal space .. how it worked. She asked me why it worked .. that way. I told her I did not know exactly but that.. that was indeed how it did work. That sometimes I wish it did not ... sometimes I watch others or I actually catch myself doing something differently than my normal and ... I get that flicker ... a brief glimpse of what it must be like to be .. different. But even that .. knowledge and desire ... could not change how I was.

I told her .. I was alone a lot. She asked me if that was a preference. I told her that was just how it worked. It was easier. I told her sometimes I move all the slaves out of my wagon into the slave wagon just .. because I get wound up about them fucking with my shit. I feel invaded and I .. suddenly sweep it all away and .. find some kind of peace in my obsessive control of my environment. My world slowly rights itself and I can ... breathe.

She asked me a few more specific questions about how that space worked .. what I took personally ... what I allowed and what actually made me angry. She asked good questions. Good questions that led to informative answers. Answers I have never been against giving those who ... ask.

She said she wanted to fit there .. in my space. That in her thought process that was the best way to get to know someone .. up close. I warned her .. it is not easy to be there. In my space. For anyone. She said she had learned that nothing was ever .. easy. I think she took it as a challenge .. even though it was not. It was a warning. But .. who am I to judge people taking things as a challenge ... I am guilty of that more often than not.

When I had to go .. she asked me if she could invade my space. It shocked me .. made me suspicious ... but more than that she appealed to the ever curious Tuchuk in me ... so I said .... all right. Before I could get it out she had wrapped me up in a hug. The simple gesture made me chuckle and I pulled her tight against my chest until she relaxed her arms and I let her go.

She asked if we could go riding and I told her yes ... I also admitted that the invasion was not ..

... that bad.

I still do not know what is riding .. haunting Seveya. I do not know if I will ever know. I do not know if she came up to talk to me or if I went down to find her. But I learned one thing about her. I can still find her .. still talk to her even when it is there and just over her shoulder hissing in her ear.

That is a very good thing to know.