Task

"You're the best Meez, I don't care what Pei says about you!"

That first adventure to the inner wagons was a unique experience. Among my own fires, everyone knows everyone. There is a venerable notoriety there. It is new to me to need to tell everyone I am Mezoo. Mezoo, who? Mezoo, daughter of Pacu, daughter of Astar. Granddaughter of Oren. It is not that I wish the fame of all knowing my face or my name. In my heart I expect them to know my parents, my grandmother, to have the much earned respect we have of them. That they do not disturbs something within me. Mother says that I am arrogant like my father to believe that even the sky knows us down to the number of hair on our head. If it doesn’t ... then why does it not?

Tao had no trouble what so ever walking in among the Ubar’s fires and telling all there, who he was and why he had come. He was Salukaii, son of Salukaii. Tao, because he does not like the name Salukaii. Call him whatever you like he was there because it is said that was where one made advancement in clan and rank. It was what a good Tuchuk does, right? He does not fit the mold of his Father, a warrior who has earned his scars, filled the ribbons of the year keepers and created the songs of history that will passed down to our children. Salukaii, son of Salukaii. His own heroics still damp like the ink in his scars are often confused with those of his Father’s. Salukaii did what? No, Not Salukaii, son of Salukaii, Tao. Ohhhh Tao with that sage nod of understanding. Tao has an insatiable thirst to stand on his own. It isn’t really attention that he demands, it is focus.

Pei does not mind riding the tail wind of my uncle’s reputation. Pei is content in being just hard working, what will be will be. First son … my brother, Pacu, son of Pacu is like that too only more so. He will accept the credits of Father as his own. He will breeze through letting everyone mistake his identity with our Father’s.

Tao is a lot like his Mother, not in the sense of giving that brought her to her knees but the want for the best of life. He wants more. It is a hunger he cannot seem to sate. I’ve heard him say that he was the arrogant son of a whore, as if he wears her sometimes like a second skin. I used to think it was just for the shock effect but over time I learned there is more there. A feel of something he cannot define. Come to think of it, I can’t either.

All I know is that my eyes widened when he added on the end of all that ... oh and this is Mezoo. What? Wait? This is your adventure ... not mine. Too late I was in the midst of it all. Next time I will show Tao what an adventure really is.

Since Tao boasted of being the best of the best at anything he put his hand to, the Ubar gave him a challenge to prove it. Tao was to put his hand to the dung and tell him what he would or could do to make it the best. With focus turned to my friend, it gave me chance to look around, to meet some of the others there.

Eventually the Ubar looked to me. I was all squared back ready to answer the question I had heard he asks of the young but it was not what he asked. He simply asked what was my story. There is little of Mezoo sung by the singers at least yet. My reply was brief. I am Mezoo, beginning to learn within the clan of the Haruspex. Since I had not come to present myself before the fires of the Ubar there was only to tell him that I search for where among the Tribe I can offer most.

I jabbed an elbow into Tao’s ribs for having put me on the spot that way. He just thought it was a love tap. Typical Tuchuk male.

Before we all parted ways from the fires that night, the Ubar said he would have tasks to offer Tao and I. They would be due before we reached the southern plains. Mine would begin … something that shows the past, present and future of ones life.