Aw How Cute It Is .. When It Sleeps

It was late as I returned to my wagon. I usually did not come to my wagon before riding out on patrol. It felt odd. Odd to return ... odd knowing someone was there now. Inside. Someone I knew waited for me. It has been a long time.

Someone whose world I had just changed drastically.

Me? Change her world? What about mine? Things were going to be different ... not that I had not owned slaves before ... but she was all ready turning things inside out. I had a feeling my life was changing in ways I had never ever considered possible before. Or if possible .. that I would like it.

Some of it I did not like. For example .. there were three women that let me know they wanted to be with me. Told me they loved me. And though I am not ready for a mate yet .. I do think of having one ... eventually. T'zuri took some of that vision away from me. Some of my thoughts regarding T'zuri have been taken away from me. Trimmed .. narrowed in scope. Thoughts with children in them .. heirs. Thoughts of things I would do with a free woman that I will never do with a slave. I am not always happy about choices being taken from me. I want children. I want a mate. I will have them and if not with T'zuri .. with someone.

However .. I can not deny that I am pleased that there is someone there .. for me ... now. In a way I can handle it. In a way I am ready for. In a way I can allow. Within the safety zone of my paranoia with women. There is a piece of me that reaches out to her for what she is willing to do for me .. to get close to me ... to know me. That kind of drive must be appreciated.

That kind of unconditional love must be considered ... valued. The chance to believe it exists. And though I see her a little as a fish who insists on jumping out of the water at my feet .. I have grasped her in my hands and run for the water barrel to see if I can keep her alive.

She had touched my heart. When? When she submitted? When I tasted her lips? When she understood about my weaknesses and needs? When she rolled in my furs like she belonged there? Naked .. beautiful. No .. no actually the moment she touched my heart was when I went to make the fire and she came next to me and added pieces. No words.. no begging to do it for me or telling me she was going to help me. No making a show of it .. just ... doing it. With me. Not for me. Like she belonged .. like she knew.

Like I was not alone.

That moment still caught in my throat and made it hard to swallow.

I was quiet as I toed up the steps. She was sleeping. As if the emotional drain she had been under was just too much .. and the ahn after ahn she had been left alone had finally weighted her eyelids. How peaceful she was ... no one would ever believe what a jit she was and how she was making such a mess out of my life. And oddly enough .. I would not have changed it.

Figures.

I did not wake her.. I would not have known what to say. I had so many thoughts about the unknowns. I do not know how to speak very well of the unknowns. I left before she woke and I stopped to speak to Oren for a few moments. Oren looked like she wanted to say a lot more to me than she did. But she left it off for another time and told me she would look after her for me.

I wonder how she will handle all my absences. Will it still be all right as my slave as it was when she was free? Does she expect this to change me? My time? My duties? How much like a woman that would be. I hope in that way she is not like a woman. I hope in that way she is still like T'zuri.

I carried with me the picture of her sleeping on my furs. Somehow I am quite sure it is the calm before the storm.