Tell Me .. The Story

No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free

No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you

No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

-The Who


It was time .. it was far passed time. Not that I was in any hurry ... though since Sahli and Jaella's return there was in me a small sense of urgency. The thought of closure seemed within my grasp. It became my focus for a couple of days .. not much else tempted my thought process away from it. The knowledge that Jaella and T'zuri had left together was more than I knew before and it hung like bait in a trap before me.

So it was when I went in search of Jaella and I found her at the kaiila pens with Cana .. there was just one thing on my mind. One singular thing.

I wanted to know the rest .. of the story.

I asked her if she knew what happened .. if she knew ... what she knew of T'zuri. My gaze rather intent on her features .. willing to know by her expressions anything she was not saying as well as portents of things she might say.

"I think I should start at the beginning. I had known something was wrong with T'zuri for a while. I did not know what, she wouldn't even talk to me. She became agitated, and one day she just decided she had to go. I decided I would go with her to try and change her mind, and of course Sahli refused to let us go alone. I made headway that first night in talking to her, and much as I love her, I had no plans on staying one for more than a day or two at most. But, when we made camp that night - we were taken. I didn't know where at first, but ended up that at least I was now being held by some Kassar. But I never saw T'zuri after that first night."

My heart sank. Sank into my stomach and the level of bile rose in my throat as my heart displaced so much of it. It was not that I expected to hear anything else .. but the hearing of it .. was harder than I thought it would be. It was hard to imagine the Kassar would have taken one and not the other .. I asked Jaella if she had been enslaved.

"No. That is the most odd part. They never even tried. In fact, the man that was clearly their leader was quite protective. I soon found out why. Fonce - his woman, it was like looking in a mirror. It was unsettling."

"But in your time with the Kassar .. you never saw T'zuri or heard what happened to her?"

"Not a sign or a word, and I did try to see. I angered them more than once by poking around and wandering when told not to. Not even a hint, not in the wagon I woke up in, no where. Its as if she completely vanished from the Plains in a wisp of smoke. I'm sorry."

She could not have said anything else at that point which would have stirred my anger .. not in the face of so much loss for me. Wisp of smoke? My gaze narrowed and the lines around my eyes deepened as the muscle of my jaw tensed. My word were not mature or logical .. they were born on the breath of disappointment that never was given closure so many years before. A thing I had never forgiven the Sky for .. which only compounded the passing of T'zuri by the same exact words. Wisp of smoke ..

..figures

"Perhaps ... she is with Kaz then."

fucking figures

I had no desire to show either Jaella or Cana how much the last couple of days had left me feeling terribly alone .. this tease of words of T'zuri had not made it better ... it had compounded everything and Jaella's unwitting .. or Spex like ... coupling of the event with Kaz's untimely demise only made things worse. I knew that was going to come back to haunt me.

Pun intended

I told Jaella none of this was her fault .. that I was no worse off for her knowledge. I told her T'zuri was not her responsibility. I did not want to give her the idea I was any less happy to see her return simply because she could not fulfill my selfish desire to learn of T'zuri.

Jaella asked me about the fact that the man .. the Kassar ... had seemed unusually fascinated with her because of her likeness to his woman. I told her there could be many reasons for it .. perfectly benign reasons .. and if there was a mystery there .. it was a mystery to me as well.

I wanted away .. to leave them. Both of them I consider some of my best friends and I knew both of them as women had the intuition to understand how pained I was right then. But I wanted neither one of them to experience it .. I wanted neither one of them to see the practical examples of my behavior that would denote such. I needed to be alone. To be around people who did not know me .. who could not see the signs ... who would have no idea what my fucking problem was and chalk it up to me just being an asshole.

So I lost myself in a crowd .. made a few enemies ... and no one knew better.