More Powerful Than Steel

How easily I sacrificed everyone in that plea. In a way I meant every word and in another I did not. I begin to grow .. stretch ... and there are those that have been there for me in ways I can never properly repay. They have cared for me in their ways and I am a better man for it. I did not mean to make them less .. or not important with that plea. I think I have placed everything that I have left .. every shred of hope and belief ... however small .... in her. On her. A terribly dangerous and misguided thing to do. But she is not here to make me regret it. In her absence .. we are both safe.

So what do you do with it all? What is there for a man to do when it all starts falling apart around him and everything he grasps turns to dust?

Save one. Whatever you do .. at least you can say you saved one.

Well if there was anyone who needed saving from me at the moment it was T'zuri. She was rather the epitome of "needing to be saved". So I wound all that right around her and with all that energy focused like a beam of light through glass ... I headed for my wagon.

In my hands I held the vest and skirt she had shed for me at the stream when she submitted ... and if you have to ask me where I got them you have not been paying very close attention.

I was a storm of intent .. nearly not human any more for it. My gaze on something that was not here .. with us. She tried to greet me .. as she usually does ... but I grabbed her up by the hair and I drug her backwards into my trajectory that held the inner sanctum of my wagon as a goal. My breathing and step without rhythm .. drunk for the lack of it. The heels of those little black boots attempting to find the steps behind her. I felt her little hands clutch at my wrist and arm attempting to save her scalp as I jerked her up over the steps and before I threw her within onto the floor. Her skirt and vest slapped at her as I threw them and choked out in a voice that did not seem to be my own ... "get dressed .. get dressed fast ... you are going home to your momma and Letti .... now."

She was smoothing her hair .. asking me what happened .. what it was about. The femininity of the gesture nearly had me insane. I still could not get the visions out of my head and she wanted me to have this conversation with her about it. I could not find the words and my chest kept rising and falling sporadically .. which was really crazy because I was damn sure that all the air I was taking in was getting trapped in my lungs ... strangled there and held for ransom. Why could she not just do what I asked? It was simple .. a directive. For once in her little jit monkey life ... why did she have to fuck with me like this? Now? I felt that edge slipping through my fingers and I tried desperately to hang on ... just a little bit longer. The line between saving and destroying ... loving and hating is so small ... had she lost her mind?

She asked me if I expected her to go back .. like none of it ever happened. I stared at her. Well .. duh. I nodded somewhat desperately. Somewhere inside of me the boy was grasping onto the idea that I could still fix this .. put all the pieces back together with some glue and hold tight .. blowing gently and praying the cracks would disappear.

"I can't go back."

"But you have to."

She told me all the reasons she could not .. would not. Things about what would kill her .. destroy her. But the thing that got to me .. the thing that took all the energy out of me ... she said it did not matter what I did. She would just come back.

Well fuck.

What the hell do you do with that? Fucking jit monkey fish out of water boskshit anyway. There was not a damn thing I could do about it. Not a thing. Either I accepted it .. or I fought it. Fighting it would drag it all over this camp like butter melting on a hot black cooking pot. I can control a lot of things .. but not love. I can not control her. No matter how hard I try I can not make her love me .. or not love me. The collar had nothing to do with it. As powerful and all consuming as we men like to believe we are .. there is one thing we can never grasp in our hands. The love of a woman. It either is .. or it is not. And good luck trying to force it one way or the other.

I could throw her back. It would not change her love. I could never speak to her again. It would not change her love. I could humiliate and ridicule her .. I could tear her apart as a person and destroy everything about her .. but I could not change her love. I could kill her .. send her ashes to the Sky and still ... all the things I could do .. whether I ended up with her in my arms or not ... there is nothing I could do or not do to change love. Not real love. Not unconditional love.

I realized Cana was wrong and right at the same time. She was right .. that I can not control love. I can not force a woman to love me. But she was wrong .. wrong in that the collar can not destroy or create love any more than I can. You see ... I do not think there is force or power on these plains or in the Sky that can control a woman's love. Something terribly and awfully secure in that.