Not Ready to Save .. Even One?

I was stomping through and around the kaiila pens with what was left of my kite .. scaring all the beasts from one end to the other with a rushing thunder of paws. Served them right .. stupid animals.

Then I saw Cana working on a saddle and I made my way over to her. She was excited to see my kite .. asked me if I thought it could be repaired and I told her I hoped so.

I told her I freed bell. She said she knew and was happy about it. That relieved me for though I was sure she would be ... I could not be sure until she confirmed it. She saw my relief and imagined that not all were happy about the decision and I told her .. fact was that not one person seemed to be unhappy about it. At least not to me. In fact everyone seemed to find it completely natural.

Now Cana is someone whose opinion I take as important to me. She has been my friend and has shown me in many ways she cares about me as a friend. So I asked her what she thought about slaves. The question had been spinning around in my head for days now. Between be-Leonette and T'zuri I was all mixed up and inside out about some things. I asked her what she saw as the purpose of a slave.

She said she had not thought much about it passed the idea they are there to serve. She said she thought she would make a poor one. I asked her why. Not because I did not have my own thoughts on why .. but because I wanted hers.

She said she was stubborn and did not feel it in her heart to be that subservient.. which made sense to me.

I asked her if she meant that she did not feel that way to everyone .. or if she had ever felt that way with one person. She said she felt that way .. somewhat ... with Tayco. But that it was out of love.

So I asked her .. is that why bell was submissive to some but free to most? Even in the collar.

She said she believed so .. that bell had not ever appeared even to her as a slave but as a woman. She said that bell loves me.

I let that last statement go. I do not know what to believe with that .. I have too much in the way there.

So I asked Cana .. her opinion ... whether bell would have survived my collar or if she was meant to be free in her love ... more as a mate to someone.

She said she did not think bell would have survived. She would have faltered and lost something of herself. But her next words took me back some. It was not because bell needed to be free in her love .. her reasoning was based on the fact she did not believe I was ready to accept the responsibility of unconditional love. That statement blew my brain in many different directions but before I took any of them I asked her to explain it. What she meant by that.

She said before a person can love .. they have to love and understand themselves and it seemed to her I had not reached that point. She said I hold back.

I asked her .. if she thought bell offered me unconditional love.

She said she did not know enough to say .. but that bell was convinced that she did offer me unconditional love.

I asked her if she thought I would destroy any woman I took as a personal slave. She told me to answer a question for her ... why had I released bell from my collar back to being a camp slave?

I answered her .. because that is what bell wanted. She asked me if I had asked bell at the time why? Well of course I had. Bell told me I was not her destiny .. that I had been a mistake. That her path was the boy .. to save him from what she no longer could save me from.

She asked me .. did I not think that perhaps that was her destiny at the time because I was not ready to accept the kind of love she was offering to me? I said of course I had .. had I not let her go? I had not punished her for it. She asked me if it bothered me to do so. I answered her that it hurt to hear I was a mistake. That none of it meant anything. I told her I begrudged the boy nothing .. if she could keep him from turning into someone like me ... why would I stop that from happening?

Cana said she did not consider me a mistake .. nor that there was anything wrong with me. But in the face of her other words these made no dent in what I was feeling at the time. Everything she was saying was convincing me I had made a terrible ... terrible mistake. A lot of them .. actually. Go figure .. me making mistakes when it came to women. Not a big stretch of the imagination. If there was not something horrifically wrong with me .. why then was the one thing in the world that had no conditions ... not mine to have?

She told me of her and Tayco .. of their love story. I asked her if she ever would have submitted to Tayco .. if that is something he wanted. She said no .. that no one can ever force another person to love. That the collar took that choice away. That shocked me. I asked her .. what if a woman loved before the collar? Would that be all right then? Would that be safe? She said for a woman like herself it would destroy her .. no matter how much love was there at first.

ah fuck