Trust

I remember Asria from Trayu's fires. Father would bring us there now and then when we were younger. It took a few ihn for her to recognize me without the tarsktails. She hugged me tight in a way that brought a connected closeness. We share a loss greater than the warriors we have loved so dearly. Tuchuk women have an inner strength like no other peoples but we draw part of it from the men in our lives. We have both lost the wall we leaned on. We spoke of the needs of our wagons. Everyone’s generosity had filled our stores to over flowing such that it created new needs. We needed salt to cure the meats before they went bad and we could use extra hands to see it done before the wagons began the move. Fonce had the answers then told us we could go through his storage wagons. I think Asria and I both lit up at the thought.

I returned to the feeling of being a child when they started talking of the first fires. Something was troubling Asria and it upset Fonce. I felt bad for her when he seemed to make her smaller than I felt at the moment. I did not really understand why a simple question could provoke so much emotion from both of them. When it came time, I had my own answer if I were asked. She left quickly after that. She and Lei and Imke too.

I’d been watching the girl thinking I was half her and half the woman but not balanced on either side and not balanced in the middle either. Fonce disrupted those thoughts when he grabbed my arm and brought me against the side of the wagon. What he spoke to me of was not quite the same as he had spoken to the woman. I heard him speaking of the ones that would not be named and I heard many from far away speaking above him and behind him. They issued different warnings. I heard the voice of Aunt ... laughing. I was not so intimidated by him nor all that swirled around him not to find defense. There would not have been hesitation if the wall of him had changed, had come closer.

Despite the echoes in my head and the feel of a male that was not my Father, or my brother and not even one of my cousins, I drew my focus back to listen to what was beneath it all. Until this moment I had felt that his stepping in had been from guilt of Father’s death, a way to salve his own soul. Voicing the sentiment aloud so he would understand as I slipped my blade back into its sheath, His worry was sincere. As suddenly as his shadow of darkness had emerged, it seemed to vanish.

Did I hurt you, Mezoo? I assured him he hadn’t while making sure I hadn’t hurt him either. Something in the way he told me he would never hurt me like that, that he would die first, touched me inside. I made him promise all that he had asked. This surprised him and he asked why. It was hard to form the words through the mists of emotions.

He was all we had.

The shrill sound of the wind through the wagons sounded just like the shriek of the dark witch