Tuchuk Mona Lisa

I do not even believe she was Tuchuk. At least by blood. I think she has got some Paravaci heritage though. I asked and she had always been a slave. I asked if she had ever loved and it was told to me that she had loved in her youth. This was good .. for I wanted a slave who understood love and understood .. I was not it.

It was her smile .. actually ... that made it all worth while. She was not beautiful. Not in the sense that most slaves around the First Wagons are .. even my own have been. But when she smiled .. which was all the time ... her features lit up like a golden morning breaking over the plains. Her movements were easy and rhythmic like a dancers. And I do not mean she danced everywhere. She rarely spoke as she served around the wagons of Morr .. offering without direction and proceeding to the next without interrupting our conversations. When Morr offered the kettle slave to me I at first refused. But at the end of the night with a few bowls of paga in me ... I took and collared her for my wagons.

I do not remember what Morr called the girl. But I call her date. Her smile is like the sweet honeyed fruits. She sleeps beneath my wagon and I nearly forgot about her all together .. but when I returned from the herds the next day and entered my wagon the change was miraculous. No longer was there a layer of dust on everything. My wagon was spotless and smelled of some kind of spice that at once soothed and made me hungry.

For a few moments I was content and I even went and washed up before I returned to eat. Oren was there and did not even give me a hard time about how long it had been since I ate with them. She just accepted me right in my place and served me a bowl of stew meat that she praised date for helping her with. And .. by the way ... where was date I asked? Oren told me Pacu and Astar had her cleaning out their wagon. I settled back with a chuckle and ate with a slow exhale of contentment.